A School Nurse for Every School: School nurses’ positive impact in addressing health inequalities in children, young people, and their families
Our annual conference hosted by Buckinghamshire New University, on 6th November was a resounding success with circa 230 delegates, both face to face and online. Critically, leaders from the Local Government Association, OHID,DHSC, Association of Directors of Public Health and other public health organisations were in attendance; this is key to decision making, including policy.
The presenters focused on our overall theme of School nurses as key to addressing health inequalities in our children and young people, joining our call for A SCHOOL NURSE IN EVERY SCHOOL. This was echoed by our keynote speaker, Sir Michael Marmot. The programme provided research, evidence, best practice and expert by experience resources for us to use in our practice; our children and young people, of course, stealing the show, led by our very own Young person ambassador Megan Leach
The depleting school nursing workforce, funding and escalating health and well-being needs of our children were at the heart of debate and discussions with a commitment issued from DHSC to work with us urgently to address.
No SAPHNA conference is ever complete without celebrations, and we were delighted to present Maria Thomas a long service award for her 59 years of school nursing service in Hammersmith and Fulham; we wish her a happy, healthy and well deserved retirement!
We also celebrated our fabulous student school nurses with Hannah Roberts from Compass health and well-being school nursing service, scooping our annual award. Our worthy conference poster award winner was Jean Raveena of Kent Community NHS Foundation Trust.
We are hugely grateful to Professor Mel Hayward, for her support in securing BNU as our venue, to their excellent conference organising staff who went above and beyond to meet our needs, to all our presenters, sponsors, exhibitors, the SAPHNA expert advisory group, senior leadership team and you, the delegates who continuously, and often against the odds, strive for excellence in school nursing!
Wednesday November 6th at Buckinghamshire New University
CONFERENCE FEEDBACK
I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the conference on Wednesday. I go to quite a few (six this month!)and I have to say yours was the most involving, interesting and uplifting!
Thank you for a great conference. The live stream was amazing (best hybrid conference I have been to) and felt really inclusive.
Your conference online really inspired me and gave me energy to raise the roar for school nursing. I have been raving about it since to everyone I meet