As with our first cohort, we will be supporting these eight nurses to deliver the charity’s strategy in their services. They will also complete their MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice, or credential through the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) as advanced clinical practitioners. To ‘spur’ them on, we are absolutely delighted that four Crohn’s & Colitis UK nurses have become the first nurses in the UK to be recognised by the RCN as Advanced Nurse Practitioners in IBD which is fantastic! You can read more about this in our recent news item.
COVID has meant that our meetings remain virtual for now, but this has done nothing to dampen the enthusiasm and commitment of the nurses to find ways to work with and promote the charity’s strategy in their NHS roles. We are in the process of collecting qualitative and quantitative data about all the exciting ways that they have been doing this, which we will use to demonstrate the impact that the charity’s ongoing investment in IBD nursing is having on people living with these conditions.
Our Crohn’s & Colitis UK nurse specialists are keen to put personalised care as a central part of their work in 2022. We are working with the Personalised Care Institute to upskill them to deliver this.
Our advice line training has remained popular, despite the new virtual format. We delivered our final session of 2021 at the end of October and are now reviewing feedback and suggestions from nurses across the UK who have attended the training to help us ensure we are meeting the needs of the IBD nursing community. We hope to be advertising more dates soon.
Isobel and I continue to work one day a week with the charity, and always available for a chat or advice if you need us. You can get in touch via ibdnursing@crohnsandcoitis.org.uk and we would love to hear from you, both about the good as well as the challenging, so please do get in touch and let us know what’s happening so we can help to share and support.
