ABPN Newsletter May 2023

Words from the Chair

In February’s newsletter I asked the question, ‘how would you like to see you Association advocate for children and young people and their nurses in the future and how would you like to help us to do that?’.

I am happy to tell you that during our 85th Anniversary Tea Party we asked our guests and members this same question. I am pleased to report our members are as passionate about advocating for babies, children and young people and their nurses as ever. We also received lots of offers of help to support our Oral History Project.

Our Tea Party was a resounding success, friends and colleagues reconnected and new connections were made. Our 2023 Fellowships were awarded. Our Fellows are of an extremely high calibre, each advancing their sphere of nursing babies, children and young people as well as being exemplary nurses. We look forward to working with our eight Fellows during the coming year.

We will soon be asking for your help again with the Oral History Project. Can I ask you to please be ready with your personal stories and reflections. This is a fantastic opportunity to record our collective history.

Caron Eyre caroneyre0@gmail.com

85th Anniversary Tea Party

The Anniversary Tea Party on the 27th April was a great success with invitations being sent far and wide to 85 guests, including student nurses from the University of Birmingham, to join us in the Burlington Hotel in Birmingham to celebrate 85 years of the ABPN advocating for children’s nursing education and children’s nursing. Colleagues travelled from Scotland, Wales and England. We thank Kyowa Kirin for their sponsorship of the event.

We have created a short movie of the event that you can watch.

Addresses were given by the President, Prof Bernie Carter, the Chair, Caron Eyre and the Worshipful Lord Mayor of Birmingham. We were delighted that the event was attended by: The Deputy Lord Lt of the West Midlands, Colonel Doctor Heidi Doughty; The Worshipful Lord Mayor of Birmingham Councillor Maureen Cornish; Lisa Johnstone, who represented Sage who publish the Journal of Child Health Care; our newly appointed Honorary Fellows (more about them later in the newsletter); members of the Association – both long standing and new; ex-Officers of the Association; and family and other supporters.

The table full of ABPN archives and memorabilia prompted many stories and memories of past conferences and other activities. It was interesting to look back on the minutes of some of the very earliest meetings and to see that some of the concerns they were raising then, such as inadequate staffing, the importance of a proper education for children’s nurses and low pay for children’s nurses are similar to the ones the ABPN is still facing. Seeing photos of members and Officers from times past was good to see.

There was a lot of excitement about our announcement of our Oral History project (more of this later in the newsletter)

We asked attendees to write down their hopes for the future of children’s nursing and we have collated these. The hopes (in summary) were that:

• The ABPN will continue to grow
• Children’s (and young people’s) nursing will get stronger
• Children’s nursing remains a distinct speciality with appropriate ongoing education
• Funded training rather than bursaries
• CYP mental health to be integrated into all CYP curricula so we build a workforce that is skilled in supporting CYP
• There should be more recognition for paediatric palliative care nursing
• CYP nurses and ABPN also focus on prevention of ill-health and reduction of health inequalities
• A more child rights focused approach embodying the UNCRC in all that we do
• More provision of care for children in environments other than hospitals
• More choice for children’s care; families should always have choices and be part of all decision making

Our tombola was successful and we raised some money for the Association to help support its work.

And, we want to say a special thank you to Barratt Hardcastle-Waugh who sang so beautifully for us and helped created a warm welcome to the Tea Party and to Jon Sparks who took photographs of the event.

Introducing our Honorary Fellows, 2023

Ann Bisbrown Lee. Ann was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the ABPN for services to the Association. Ann is a hard-working, loyal and committed member of the ABPN, known to many for her work at conferences and leading the marketing activity of the Association.

Professor Steven Campbell. Steven was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the ABPN for services to the Association. Stephen was the first editor of the Journal of Child Health Care and provided considerable support to the ABPN in a variety of roles during the 1980s and 1990s.

Rachel Cooke. Rachel was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the ABPN for contributions to nursing care of children and young people. Rachel has made a significant contribution to the palliative care of children and young people in the UK and abroad, noticeably Romania and Ukraine and has led changes to care at the time of the child's death and bereavement support in London.

Norman Long. Norman was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the ABPN and for services to the Association. Norman has been a longstanding member of the Governance and Development group of the Association, most notably as the Finance Officer over many, many years.

Professor Bertha Ochieng. Professor Ochieng was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the ABPN for services to the healthcare of children and young people. Bertha is a children's nurse whose work focuses on community empowerment and engagement of socially disadvantaged populations.

Dr Gerri Sefton. Gerri was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the ABPN for services to the nursing care of children and young people. Gerri is a Consultant Nurse, working in children’s critical care and is an expert on paediatric early warning systems.

Fiona Smith. Fiona was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the ABPN for services to children’s nursing. Following a career in children's nursing, Fiona became the CYP advisor at the RCN, personally supporting and mentoring many children's nurses. Fiona played a key role in establishing the European Paediatric Nursing Network.

Michael Tatterton. Michael was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the ABPN for services to community children’s nursing. Michael is a clinical academic and Clinical Director for a children's hospice. Michael has led developments in children community services, children's hospices and children's palliative care.

Updating the Blue Book

The Blue Book (the history of the Association) is now a live document and continues to be updated. You can find a copy of the Blue Book on our website http://www.abpn-uk.com/key-documents-policies-and-resources.html

If you have any information you think we should add, then please do let us know. If you can contribute, please contact If you can contribute, please contact either Robin robin.hyde@northumbria.ac.uk or Bernie bernie.carter@edgehill.ac.uk

Keeping in Touch

We will soon be launching our new membership platform hosted by VeryConnect. The new platform offers a more streamlined way of managing the membership of the ABPN. Members will receive a letter with full details of the move in due course.

Once again we’re reaching out to try and make sure that we’ve got up-to-date contact details for our members. If you are in touch with colleagues who haven’t been receiving our newsletters or emails, please ask them to get in touch with us so we can put this right. They can update their details by either by contacting our Membership Secretary or Secretary

Our Newsletter

We hope you like the style and content of our Newsletter. If you have any ideas for content or have any feedback on our new look, please do contact Bernie bernie.carter@edgehill.ac.uk

Defending the value of field-specific pre-registration training for children’s nurses

On 24th March the ABPN issued a Press Release. This followed an upsurge in discussion about the importance of preserving pre-registration training for children’s nurses following the publication of an article titled ‘Is it time for us to rethink field-specific training’ (1). In the article it was proposed that the ‘time for generic training and a nursing workforce with broad experience is now’ proposing that generically trained nurses could specialise after their initial training.

This is not the first time that abandoning pre-registration children’s nursing qualifications has been proposed.

The ABPN are experienced in arguing for the fundamental value of pre-registration children’s nursing and defending against threats to this part of the register. Since it was founded in 1938, the ABPN has always been proactive in the debates around the education of nurses who work with babies, children, young people, and their families. Evidence of this can be found in our ‘Blue Book’ which records the history of the Association (2).

To read the full Press Release, please click here.

1. Purssell E, Sagoo R. Is it time for us to rethink field-specific training? Nursing Children and Young People 2023;35(2):1. doi: 10.7748/ncyp.35.2.12.s5
2. ABPN. The Association of British Paediatric Nurses: the first 85 years (1938-2023) (The Blue Book) 2023 [updated May 2023]. Available from: http://www.abpn-uk.com/key-documents-policies-and-resources.html.

The Fit4CYP Project

The ABPN is pleased to support the Fit4CYP project led by Dr Matt Carey and Prof Sarah Neill from the University of Plymouth.

The project aims to address the paucity of evidence concerning the impact of different levels of shared learning in pre-registration programmes on the fitness to practice of children’s nurses in the United Kingdom.

A survey is underway to map how Higher Education Institutes across the UK have interpreted the Future Nurse Standards in developing their programmes for children’s nursing students. This will also help identify potential HEI research sites to include in the main project.

Survey findings will also provide the first evidence of the variability in type of children’s nursing education programmes provided across the UK.

The team includes key stakeholders and academics involved in shaping the education and preparation of children’s nurses such as the Association of British Paediatric Nurses, Association of Chief Children’s Nurses, NHS England, Department of Health, CYPNAUK, Royal College of Nursing, Nursing and Midwifery Council, and the RCPCH.

If you want to learn more or share information about your own programme, please contact Matt or Sarah

Improving children’s lives by managing procedure induced anxiety

A new elearning programme has been developed to provide a comprehensive account of research evidence to illustrate the prevalence and consequences of procedure induced anxiety. This anxiety can have long term consequences. To find out more and to access the training, please visit the Management of Procedure Induced Anxiety in Children programme page.

Journal of Child Health: articles, podcasts and more

Apart from great editorials and high quality peer reviewed papers, the Journal of Child Health Care produces great JCHC podcasts, hosted by Associate Editor, Liz King. These podcasts focus on authors talking about their research and the papers published in the journal.

Rare Disease Day Webinar

At the end of February, Caron Eyre, chaired the ‘Spotlight on Rare Bone Conditions’ webinar that was organised by Kyowa Kirin in partnership with the ABPN.

The event was really successful with a lot of knowledge and expertise being shared with the attendees.

Primary care clinical pathway for constipation in children

Published in March 2023, this pathway supports clinicians in the prevention and management of constipation in children and young people by providing a clear and standardised approach, based on guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the British National Formulary for Children (BNFc) and clinical expert groups

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/national-primary-care-clinical-pathway-for-constipation-in-children/

Join the ABPN

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