ANNUAL REPORT

PPDNF Annual Report 2001-2003

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Report from the Chair

For the PPDNF in Scotland, this has been a period of change for the group and many of its members.

For a start, in 2001, a new chairperson and vice chairperson, Sandra Crawford and Fiona Cook, respectively, took over from the very able Liz Swan who was one of the founder members and chair for four years and Vicki Stewart who also had a long and active association with the group. Sincere thanks are extended to them for their innovation and enthusiasm. Truly a hard act to follow!

During this last year, many of the group have changed their jobs; some retaining an interest in practice development and others understandably unable to maintain their links with the group due to competing priorities.

Despite this, the quarterly meetings have been well attended with a core group of around 20 nurses gathering to network, support each other and work on specific projects together.

Speakers from a range of settings have been invited to inform the group of specific areas of interest. For example, Dr Kathy Munro from Queen Margaret University College came to talk about the Postgraduate Certificate in Education and the role of the practice educator; Kate Thomas was invited to talk about her new role in the RCN, Carol Watson came from NHS Education and Nancy Kirkland was invited to talk about the NMC etc. Minutes of all the meetings are recorded in the form of an attractive easy-to-read newsletter, which are then e-mailed to all members on the membership database.

Fiona Cook assumed the position of chair of the group in 2002, temporarily, to cover Sandra Crawford’s period of sick leave. Fiona and Kate Cocozza represented the group at the Developing Practice Network (previously PDF in England) meeting in London in October 2002 and made good contacts with colleagues there.

At a recent meeting of the Forum, the group debated the motion this house believes that the PPDNF in Scotland should become a multi professional forum. The result, on the day, was a unanimous vote to retain the nursing identity of the group meantime, but to keep this item on the agenda and to canvas the views of other members on the database.

As ever, the effort put into the small working groups continues to produce excellent work.

Objectives for the year included:-

Raising the profile of the PPDNF
In 2001, the committee talked through the position of the PPDNF in Scotland with Theresa Fyffe, Nursing Officer for Practice, Policy and Research Development at the Scottish Executive. Whilst commendation was given to the amount of influential work conducted by the PPDNF, there was also an acknowledgement that the group has no authority or commissioning power for projects in Scotland. Some concerns were raised surrounding the PPDNF objectives specifically where the work of the PPDNF was potentially duplicating projects directed by national policy and strategy and the work conducted by NMPDU, NRIS, NES etc.

Recently a further, helpful meeting with Rhona Hotchkiss, Nursing Director of NMPDU has helped to raise the awareness of the forum at national level and the willingness of members go be involved in NMPDU projects. In partnership with NMPDU, a hard copy of the competency assessment tool has been distributed to all newly qualified staff nurses in 2003.

Risk Management Tool
The tool has been piloted successfully in a number of trusts in Scotland and has proved to be a valuable resource when identifying areas of potential risk related to a new area of practice development. It is proposed that we will put the tool on the website

Conference Group
The conference group was disappointed to have to cancel the conference planned for 2002 due to lack of interest. A number of factors possibly contributed to this which the group have taken on board. The conference has been rescheduled to take place at the Southern General in Glasgow in June 2003.

Website www.ppdnf.org
The PPDNF website is now firmly established on the World Wide Web! Special thanks are extended to Chris Rodden for all her hard work in achieving and maintaining this objective. All current PPDNF information is now posted in the website, which has hyperlinks to other related agencies e.g. FONS, NMPDU, NRIS etc. The number of hits the site is recording encourages us. Please continue to use the website to network and support the work of the forum.

Practice development competencies
A great deal of work has been conducted by this subgroup to identify the competencies required by Practice Development Nurses. It is hoped that this work will be completed and circulated to the forum members in the near future.

Benchmarking tool
This work is now complete and the tool has been circulated to all members of the forum.

Effectiveness of the Forum
A group has been looking at the effectiveness of the forum and recently presented their findings thus far. Information collated from this work will help the PPDNF in the future.

Other successes

A poster abstract publicising the work of the PPDNF was presented at the RCN conference in Keele in 2002 and also the NHS Education for Scotland conference in March 2003
A group has been formed to evaluate the effectiveness of the forum

In summary, the forum continues to be a supportive and proactive arena for nurses involved in professional and practice development roles.

Treasurer's report

The finances of the PPDNF are in good order, despite not having generated any income in 2002. It is anticipated that, after paying the necessary bills, the conference in June 2003 will generate income. The only regular expenditure from the fund is the monthly payment to the Webmaster. The Finance Department at the Southern General in Glasgow has recently audited our accounts.

Secretary's report

The membership of the PPDNF currently stands at 58 members based in public and private healthcare providers throughout Scotland. The website continues to provide an excellent arena for networking, information sharing etc. All members are encouraged to access the website rerularly.

Fiona Cook
Chair
May 2003

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This page last updated 13 June 2003

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