Thanks BGS & CPNA-T: NCRS* Project secondment ends; back to clinical practice

I would like to publicly thank the British Geriatrics Society# and CPNA Trustees who have covered my travel costs to the SPT conference 2007. I could not have attended otherwise.

You may notice a lack of advertising on the website and blog. I've tried to focus on the message - but funds do matter. If an 'appropriate' organisation(s) would like to fill the vacant space here that could feature advertising to help sponsor future conference attendances please get in touch!

Come August 1st - I'm back in clinical harness (Community Mental Health Nurse Older Adults) after an almost three year secondment, which has been a great experience. The highlights? Well, that would include...

• Working with new colleagues - Barbara, Jeremy, Tracey and Heather - good luck all! - and change consultants, learning the ropes and being let loose on the service.
• Working on data quality, comms materials...
• Explaining to clinicians what's coming down their way (locally and nationally), why it's needed and the challenges we still face.
• Being able to comment on proposals for future system content, including aspects of the interface(s) which are often taken for granted, but are of course critical in so many ways: safety, usability...
• Meeting other clinicians from other areas and organisations, notably Social Services and debating what's happening in their locality (have any dots been joined for you?).
• Going on a 2nd secondment and gaining insight into information standards development and management - a real challenge and well worth the effort - I'm still tingly from that.
• Acting as mentor for Chris our (former!) Trainee Public Health Analyst. All the best for September and Med. school Chris! Thrilled to pieces when I heard !
• Although not directly related to my secondment the week long Ideas Factory in Bath last October definitely still has me tingling from the new Roman baths complex and at 0230 on the Friday trying to finish a research proposal. This was quite scary in some ways, I had nothing to lose, but for the academics you could see the stakes were very high. Another set of processes revealed, an opportunity to use and share Hodges' model.
• One of the biggest things was being part of a National programme and seeing the amazing work that is going on amid enormous challenges and hurdles. The future of health and social care really is going to be different, it has to be: we have to make sure it is also better. Clinicians on the ground must never be an after thought. And there's the question of public engagement too.

As to my future - in-between the home visits, allocation meetings and case reviews each month I'll definitely be keeping in touch with things informational. I'm really grateful to my clinical and ICT managers for being able to pursue all the above and ongoing informatics threads...

Back in Nov 2004 I really needed a change and I felt the team needed a change too. I grabbed the opportunity, in denial about the piece of elastic that would eventually haul me back. Well it has and it isn't the prospect of the clinical work that brasses me off, it's walking into a building I first entered in 1989. Its days are numbered as a base and it's true I have been 'leaving' for at least a decade, but in that time I've been drafted onto other projects, constantly learning and I hope helping others to learn too.

Clinical work: no problem! You can't beat the buzz of knocking on a person's door in order to check what's happening and help them to help themselves whenever that's a goer. When you can't do that there's still a vital role to play. It's a sobering responsibility and when you see how and what people are struggling/coping with - well....

So, if you are reading this AND a student - undecided regards a career - do check out nursing (and other career pathways) and social care: you really can make a difference.

After all the above for me it's time for a proper change. I've started another book chapter on socio-technical structures and Hodges' model - now with a philosophy of technology bias. I'd really like to focus on learning and teaching with space reserved for clinical practice - cognitive/humanistic therapy.

I've mentioned Drupal, Ruby on W2tQ; but I've have no time to pursue and test ideas. I'm sure I could use these tools, if time, time...

Better still exercise the need to pass on this keystone, this baton to students - it is their race, their care that counts now.

I'm sure h2cm isn't just an over-valued idea.

There are vast and rich seams to mine here (without damaging the environment) and they run under ALL the subject disciplines.

Before that - IF it happens at all ;-) let's see what's happening for clinicians, as I pick up the phone and knock on doors once again.

Having knocked on two already, I have a feeling I'm going to need my infra-red glasses - more to follow....

Whatever you are about - keep smiling as you join your own dots...

*NCRS: NHS Care Record Service
# Conference brief on its way...