ANNUAL REPORT

PPDNF Annual Report 2003-2004

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Report from the Chair

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It is always refreshing and energising to reflect on the past year, which has been one of further change and achievement for the PPDNF in Scotland.

It was good to welcome Sandra Crawford, Chair of the PPDNF, back to the group in February 2003 after a long period of sick leave; however after much consideration Sandra decided to resign from the group in October 2003. Consequently, following consultation with the wider group, it was agreed that Fiona Cook re-assume the position of chair of the group on a permanent basis. This left the position of vice chair vacant. The group held an extraordinary session during the February 2004 quarterly meeting to discuss this and as a consequence Irene Lavery, Practice Development Nurse at LUHD was appointed to the position.

The PPDNF continues to use its national influence over practice development projects by disseminating work conducted by specific project groups. During 2003, the work done on Benchmarking, Risk Assessment and Competencies, all relating to practice development work was completed and is now available on the website. It is anticipated that the Competency Assessment Tool will also be on-line shortly. The group was delighted that the Practice Development Department in Quality Improvement Scotland chose to present all newly qualified practitioners in Scotland with a copy of this document last year.

Currently the membership of the group remains exclusively nursing, but this will be reviewed regularly to check how this decision fits with other PD organisations, eg Developing Practice Network (DPN) and also reflects the ethos of practice development.

Links with Developing Practice Network (DPN)

Committee members are all members of the DPN and good links are being maintained with them. Recently Caroline Scott represented the PPDNF at the national AGM. Brendan McCormack, who chairs the DPN, was the keynote speaker at the PPDNF conference last year in Glasgow. He is keen to identify ways to share further with us a group.

Conference 2003

The conference, Practice Development - Pushing out the Boundaries, held in the Southern General on 13 June 2003 was a great success. The event was very well attended and evaluated by nurses from across Scotland. The speakers, Brendan McCormack, Di Marks-Maran, Eunice Muir, together with the chair Theresa Fyffe, all gave much food for thought. The current conference committee has taken on board the suggestions for future conferences made by participants in the evaluation forms.

PPDNF/QIS

In January 2003, Fiona Cook and An Rae held a very helpful meeting with Penny Bond from QIS (and also a PPDNF member) to clarify the position of the PPDNF in relation to the QIS Practice Development Unit's meetings with key nursing personnel in Scotland. It was agreed that as the purpose of the meetings were different, that there was room for both to take place at a strategic level. Penny outlined the intention of QIS to involve personnel from the PPDNF in specific projects. Since that meeting, Fiona Cook, representing the PPDNF, has been invited by QIS to participate in designing a Practice Development Strategy for Scotland - no mean task, but none the less very welcome!

Project Work

Members of the PPDNF continue to work together on a range of projects, described below:-

Conference Group
As previously stated, the conference committee are planning a further conference to take place later in 2004. Watch this space... but it is likely to explore further concepts of Practice Development.

Evidencing Practice
The purpose of this group is to describe how practice can be evidenced. They aim to produce a framework for evidencing practice, which could be used in any setting and will be based on the principles of person-centred care. A draft document is expected in the near future.

Presentation for HEI's/Information leaflet
A small group has been designing a teaching session, which could be delivered to final year students at HEIs to introduce the concept of practice development and the PPDNF. The same group is also designing a brief information folder about the PPDNF to be used across Scotland. This work will be concluded by autumn 2004.

New challenges

An integral component of a practice development journey often includes participation in an action learning set (ALS). Some of the PPDNF members are currently already involved in ALS; however many are not and. The PPDNF committee was interested in the PPDNF practising what it preaches by role modelling behaviours that contribute positively to practice development. Consequently an Action Learning away day 'taster' session was held in Stirling in April for interested practitioners to consider whether or not they would like to support and challenge each other in this way. The day was facilitated by Kate Coccoza and Fiona Cook and by the end of the day all present 'signed up' to the creation of 2 sets which will run monthly till December 2004. There are still places for anybody else who is interested to join.

Conclusion

Despite the busy workload of all involved in the PPDNF, there continues to be good attendance at the quarterly meetings with many more nurses accessing information and networking via the website. In summary, the forum continues to be a supportive and proactive arena for nurses involved in professional and practice development roles.

Fiona Cook
Chair
May 2004

Secretaries' Report

The membership of the Forum has increased since August 2003 from 58 to 124 members. Members join via the website and have indicated that the most common route to hear about the Forum is via other Forum members (12 since May 2003), 6 from website, 4 as a result of conference, 3 through colleagues, 2 via flier and one by networking. Approximately 18 members attend meetings, although these members vary.

Website:

The Forum members agreed the website should be redesigned and for the 'hosting' of the website to be transferred to Rosstait in August 2003. The benefit of the change to the hosting arrangements is to enable the Forum to receive more comprehensive statistics about usage. The aim of the redesign is to make the website more interactive and user-friendly. Latest news and events section and forthcoming meetings are now on the home page with separate sections for an archive of meetings, notice board, conference, projects, annual report, constitution, links and on-line joining. There is potential to develop a Discussion Forum where topics can be debated.

The benchmarking tool, risk management tool, and practice development competencies are now available on-line.

A mailing list has been set up for interested parties who do not want to join the Forum but wish to receive information about the Forum's work, conferences etc. This will ensure only active members of the Forum have access to members' contact details. Further discussion will be required to ensure the mailing list meets the needs of those accessing it.

Web site statistics from the past 5 months (since Nov 2003):
The site is receiving between 160 and 180 visitors a month, and between 300 and 350 visits. This means many visitors are returning to the site more than once within the month, which is a sign visitors are returning. The most popular pages have consistently been the meetings page and projects section, which suggests that visitors are interested in the work and activities of PPDNF. In April the 2003 conference evaluation page was very popular as well, coming 3rd in the rankings.

Approximately 10% of pages in April were accessed through search engines like Google. These are most likely to be new visitors rather than returning visitors. Some of the search phrases they used to find the site are 'practice development', 'barriers to effective leadership and management in nursing', 'reflective practice in nursing'. In March, people came to the site by searching for 'risk management cycle' and 'professional development for nurses', amongst others.

Another 10% of pages were accessed through links from other sites like NMPDU, Royal College of Nursing and the Foundation of Nursing Studies.

Almost half of the pages were accessed directly, through bookmarks/favourites people had saved on their computers or by typing the address in directly. These are probably returning visitors and members.

The rest of the pages are accessed from within the PPDNF site, showing that many visitors are looking at more than one page when they visit.

Guest speakers:

Penny Bond, Professional Practice Development Officer: NHS Quality Improvement Scotland outlined the structure of NHS QIS and the proposed plan for practice development.

Theresa Douglas RCN Clinical Leadership Facilitator gave an overview of the RCN Clinical Leadership programme and an introduction to action learning sets.

Meeting the needs of PPDNF:

Forum members decided they would like to learn more about and participate in action learning. As a result of this identified learning need, Kate Cocozza and Fiona Cook outlined the process of action learning and two groups of PPDNF members have formed for 6 months and will be facilitated by Kate and Fiona. These will be evaluated in Dec 2004 to identify the future role of PPDNF in facilitating these sessions.

Maintaining links with Developing Practice Network:

Caroline S attended a DPN meeting on 18th March 2003. The DPN is a separate multi-professional organisation in England, Wales and N. I. (Chair Brendon McCormack). This is now a virtual organisation with regional meetings. PPDNF maintain strong links with representation at most meetings. There will be a conference held in November where practitioners from Scotland will be encouraged to participate by presenting practice development projects they have undertaken.

Caroline Scott/Ann Rae
PPDNF Secretraries
11th May 2004

This page last updated 15 June 2004

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