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UNISON Scotland Nursing Conference
2 November 2010 - 10.00am-4.30pm
Trades Hall, 85 Glassford Street, Glasgow G1 1UH
On 2 November 2010 in the Trades Hall in Glasgow the Nursing &
Midwifery Sector Committee held a very successful Nursing Conference
where nurses, midwives and health visitors from all branches of
UNISON attended. The event was chaired by Bridget Hunter, Lead
Officer for Nurses & Midwives who acts as secretary to the
sector committee.
The event originally had Nicola Sturgeon, Cabinet Secretary for
Health and Wellbeing as the keynote speaker but very late in the
day we were notified that she could not attend. Jackie
Baillie, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing
happily and ably stepped into the breach. Jackie spoke of what
her vision was for the future if Labour were to be elected to
govern from May. She stated she was committed to no compulsory
redundancies within the NHS in Scotland and that she had a plan
to establish a panel of specialists to look at how best to shape
the number and shape of health boards for the coming years.
Ros Moore, Chief Nurse for Scotland, was the first
speaker was and gave a presentation on 'My Ambitions for Nursing
in Scotland' who told the conference that nursing and midwifery
teams really are key to the quality strategy for the future. She
identified her 3 ambitions as:
- To use taxpayer money wisely so that we come out the other
end of this with better care and better services agreed through
real partnerships with our staff, service users & communities
- Achieved by getting the routine high impact nursing interventions
right - all the time through productivity prevention and innovation.
- We stay connected to the workforce, their values & motivations
She also spoke of making better use if Healthcare Support workers
and nursing assistants whom she said were “Worth their weight
in gold”. She ended by saying that:
“Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors”
(click links for Ros Moore's powerpoint presentation:
Part 1 - 3.9MB and Part
2 - 1MB)
Roger Thompson, NMC Director of Standards and Registrations
spoke on ‘Increasing Public Protection: moving
beyond the register’ and spoke of their newly released document
‘Raising and Escalating Concerns’. He spoke about
the NMC and investigating systemic failure and about ‘joining
up regulation’
- Regulating individuals
- Regulating providers
- Bridging the gap
(click
here for Roger Thompson's powerpoint presentation
- 676KB)
Mick McKeown, Principal Lecturer, University
of Central Lancashire and Dave Mercer
Senior Lecturer, Liverpool University gave a fantastic
presentation on ‘Why Nurses should not be in the BNP’.
They spoke of
- History of health care workers active in resistance to fascism
- In trade unions
- Community activism
- Anti-fascist groups and alliances
- Making links at the level of occupation and activism
and they drew relevance to today from survivor stories
from Guantanamo, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, former Yugoslavia, Palestine,
Afghanistan and Iraq. They urged branches to be active not just
reactive as the BNP are out there and growing through their activity.
(click
here for powerpoint presentation ‘Why Nurses
should not be in the BNP’ - 3.4MB)
(click
here for article on: Mental health Nursing and resistance
to fascism by M McKeown and D Mercer, Journal of Psychiatric
and Mental Health Nursing, 2010, 17, 152–161 - PDF
- 104KB)
Gail Adams, Head of Nursing for UNISON
presented ‘Speaking up and Speaking out’ and ‘Raising
and Escalating Concerns’ and responded to the NMC newly
released document ‘Raising and Escalating Concerns’.
(click
here for Gail Adams powerpoint presentation - 1MB)
Questions were ably asked of all the presenters throughout the
day.
A panel for question and answers and workshops were conducted
which completed the conference which closed at 4pm.
The turnout on a very wet and miserable day could have been better
as we did have places for up to 130 but of the 74 members who
did attend reported they all enjoyed the content.
The Nursing & Midwifery Sector want to thank everyone that
attended and participated in the discussions and asked questions,
especially the speakers, and hope that we can repeat something
similar for next year.
(click
here for original PDF flyer and agenda)
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