#RCN26 RCN Congress - Nurse Education

If you think hard-enough all the debates at RCN Congress connect to 'education', but two are laser-focussed:

Protecting nurse education

Resolution submitted by the Education Forum
That this meeting of RCN Congress asks RCN Council to lobby UK governments to protect nurse education from university sector economic pressures.

Quality of clinical placements

Matter for discussion submitted by the Students Committee
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses ways in which the quality of clinical placements can be ensured and consistent across all 4 countries.

For more senior colleagues, you may momentarily think back - all rose-tinted - to the pre-undergraduate Schools of Nursing, but you also realise change was needed and inevitable. A new millennium was fast approaching.

Now, however it seems within the university ecosystem, nursing is a threatened subject and discipline. Nurse education is exposed and itself vulnerable. In the 21st century fitness-stakes - finance wins:

individual

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INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

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group

mental fitness	physical fitness
SOCIAL VALUE  & VALUES	FINANCIAL FITNESS

 

At RCN Congress, the status of nursing as a profession in the USA, was raised. Looking online, I found the following at the U.S. Department of Education: Myth vs. Fact: The Definition of Professional Degrees.

In January 2025 I posted about the situation at Cardiff University. At Congress the matter of the quality of clinical placements, became a resolution. The protection of nurse education provoked an impassioned and emotional debate. Student nurses seeing what is happening to nurse faculty. Nurse faculty seeing the years of experience 'walk' be-pushed out through the door. It seems there is no collective noun for a group, or collection of redundancies. Mass comes to mind, especially in this instance. A 'rash' seems appropriate. But, the condition is more serious and bears further investigation:

As a Google search demonstrates - https://share.google/SViFPWuJovKWhErEE

IT doesn't stop there ...

How many of us (nurses, and other 'professionals') are seeing job offers(?) such as:

Remote
Contract

$35/hr - $80/hr (this is lower than others ...)

About the job

Nursing Informatics Specialist (AI Training)

About The Role

Your clinical knowledge is more valuable than you think — beyond the bedside. We're looking for experienced nursing professionals to help train and evaluate AI systems built for healthcare. As a Nursing Informatics Specialist at Alignerr, you'll apply your frontline expertise to ensure AI understands real-world clinical workflows, EHR systems, and nursing documentation the way actual nurses do.

This is a unique opportunity to work at the intersection of nursing practice and cutting-edge AI — on your own schedule, from anywhere.

• Organization: ---------
• Type: Hourly Contract
• Location: Remote
• Commitment: 10–40 hours/week
  
  

What You'll Do

• Evaluate AI-generated clinical content for accuracy, safety, and alignment with real nursing workflows
• Review and annotate EHR documentation scenarios, flagging errors or gaps in clinical reasoning
• Translate nursing practice knowledge into structured feedback that improves AI model outputs
• Assess how well AI systems reflect clinical informatics best practices across areas like documentation, data integrity, and care coordination
• Provide expert insight on health IT tools, including EHR platforms such as Epic or Cerner
• Work independently and asynchronously on task-based assignments
  
  

Who You Are

• Registered Nurse (RN) or equivalent clinical background with hands-on experience in a healthcare setting
• Familiar with EHR systems and clinical documentation workflows
• Able to analyze clinical scenarios and communicate clear, structured feedback
• Detail-oriented with strong written communication skills
• Self-motivated and comfortable working independently in a remote environment
• No prior AI experience required — your clinical expertise is what matters
  
  

Nice to Have

• Experience in clinical informatics, health IT, or nursing informatics roles
• Familiarity with data annotation, quality review, or evaluation processes
• Background in quality improvement, patient safety, or clinical education
• Exposure to health data standards (e.g., HL7, FHIR, SNOMED)
  
  

Why Join Us

• Work on cutting-edge AI projects with leading research labs and AI teams
• Fully remote and flexible — set your own hours and work at your own pace
• Freelance perks: autonomy, variety, and global collaboration
• Apply your nursing expertise in a completely new and impactful way
• Contribute to AI that could meaningfully improve how healthcare technology serves patients and clinicians
• Potential for ongoing work and contract extension

You might think (no pun intended!): 

'Well this all about informatics. Don't worry - it will all work out fine!'

But, please notice, the clinical and nursing requirement:

"Registered Nurse (RN) or equivalent clinical background with hands-on experience in a healthcare setting."

Not exactly, Hodges' model is it? Even if specific to this role, what does it say:

• about :: the title of 'Registered Nurse'
• about :: Nurses and Nursing as a Profession
• and :: to search engines and agentic AI?

So be aware, and concerned (worried even!) for nursing and nurse education ... 
for the humanity of healthcare:

individual

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INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

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group

de-humanisation	BIG TECH
"Where has everyone gone?" Social values Social justice What about research, debate, evidence..?	Nursing Faculty Universities as Institutions that reflect Society Why is there an echo in here? It's been hollowed out.

P.S. I am not a technophobe. Previously: 'AI' : 'SOCIO-technical'

RCN Congress 2025 iv - AI & quality improvement

Discussion: Artificial intelligence in nurse education &

Discussion: The role of nursing staff in quality improvement

We'll cover two agenda items in this post. First, resistance is futile in the apparent rise and ubiquity of artificial intelligence.

Discussion: Artificial intelligence in nurse education

Here is, another thing 'we need to get right'. Without checking, I'm sure I posted/tweeted about 'essay factories'. Now Generative AI has put the automated generation of academic essays on steroids. If a student is not motivated to learn, enthusiastic about their seemingly chosen course of study and the professional reward to be earned, then we are in trouble. Public and patient safety are at risk. AI, is however is here to stay - change and help us prosper(?). AI and GenAI are tools, just another step forward, an advance on finger tips, palms, stick, chalk, pencil, and pen. The brief for the discussion includes, with specific points emboldened:

'... Additionally, AI-driven simulations and virtual reality scenarios can provide hands-on experience in a controlled environment, enabling students to practice and refine their skills with greater confidence. 

Creating an engaging and supportive learning environment is key to helping nursing students embrace AI. HEIs can introduce AI concepts early in the curriculum and provide ongoing training and resources. Encouraging collaboration and open discussions about the benefits and challenges of AI can further enhance students' confidence in using these tools.

By taking these steps, nursing education can seamlessly integrate AI, ensuring future nurses are equipped to excel in an evolving health care landscape.

To effectively integrate AI into nursing education, RCN Wales, for example, advocates for higher education institutions (HEIs) to equip students with the skills to continually enhance their digital and biotechnological literacy, ensuring they meet their programme outcomes.

HEIs can incorporate regular assessments and feedback mechanisms to monitor a student’s progress and determine where AI tools add the most value.' . . .

Computer-aided learning has matured greatly since the 1980s and 1990s. AI and GenAI mark the seeming leap in progress over the past two years, with governments, professional bodies and society having to adjust and quickly. We need to watch how simulation, and virtual reality and other approaches to learning are applied, to assure the quality, safety and learning experience provided to students. There appears to be a risk in mental health nursing curricula being 'diminished'. Interpersonal skills are critical in psychiatric and psychological care. This might afford the advocates of technically-laden solutions to side-step the nuances of face-to-face human interaction. Amid the pursuit of what is mechanistic, let us value the humanistic also.

The biotechnical, is one a several literacies to keep sight of. AI, is of course bound up in bio-political concerns, that are still emerging. The 'health care landscape' is plural too: consider the patient's home, a ward, out-patient department, e-consultation, e-learning intervention, brief psychotherapy, occupational health, carceral care, and field hospital, veterans, migrant - refugee health and the homeless.

There's more, and references and a reading list are also provided on the above link.

Discussion: The role of nursing staff in quality improvement

'Quality improvement is about making a difference to patients by improving safety, effectiveness, and experience of care.

All nursing staff should have the abilities and support to become involved in addressing health care pressures, utilising their expertise in the profession as leaders, not only in care delivery, but also within the system. However, the work of nursing staff to deliver quality improvement is often limited to opportunities that are dependent on staffing, seniority and availability. 

Nurses’ willingness to attend training is often superseded by patient demand making attendance impossible. Other health care colleagues undertake work on research and service improvement alongside their role and as a requirement for their revalidation, this is not the case for nursing staff who don’t get these opportunities.

Consider the benefits of the nursing workforce undertaking quality improvement, conducting local research, reorganising working environments, translating or updating patient materials, trialling novel approaches to care or addressing health inequalities. These skills would not only improve the quality of care we provide but also prepare the nurse to influence and change systems throughout their career.

This is relevant UK-wide. Scotland's 2030 vision for nurses, states an intention to equip nurses with quality improvement tools and support, but only nurses in non-hands-on roles. NHS Wales offers quality improvement training through e-learning  via the ESR to health care professionals, in Wales. In Northern Ireland training is available, but only for Band 7 and above.'

What is the role of all nurses to get involved in quality improvement?'

There is a point with IT security that if it was 100% assured with all the prospective log-ins of an average user, would we ever get any 'real' work done? Does the same apply to research? I have heard this as an argument in practice; and a response to a drive for quality improvement too. Data takes time to collect, especially to answer new questions. Such arguments were also fielded when models of nursing were spoke of with eye-rolls and sighs of experience. Quality improvement is a fight, opportunities and resources can be found, especially if a culture of research is nurtured and sustained. What questions does a ward, unit, team have currently? What queries might new starters, newly qualified, students, and placement candidates provoke? If my reference to fighting seems strong; the fight is for time. The raw truth is in the NHS that quality improvement, research and supervision (in its various forms) are in competition, in the absence of coherent integration.

In bold above, the discussion includes:

'trialling novel approaches to care or addressing health inequalities'.

I wonder what that springs to mind? More seriously, we need be aware of what happens to 'quality'; in whatever educational form it is encountered and experienced. 

individual

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INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

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group

interpersonal skills informal / formal education QUALITY lifelong learning	biotechnical landscape quality improvement - clinical supervision?
inequity social preparedness for AI/GenAI	inequality management supervision?

RCN Congress 2025 Liverpool i

... the twists and folds of debates

Repeating myself (again) but worthwhile I think(?), the past week brought my second RCN Congress. If you are new student nurse, international (Std) nurse, or nursing support worker and not engaged with a professional body, or union; do try to get involved. Don't leave it as long as I have (I joined a union as a nursing assistant). By way of a small excuse, listening this week it seems I am not the only one to leave it 'late'. Based in Liverpool (again after 2019) means there's a torrent of potential content. So where am I/We? By their nature all the debates are worthy. I have picked a few:

Discussion - Celebrating a nursing career

You can read above the main focus for the discussion. For me it prompted the following (no doubt - familiar)  reflections ...

The number of potential careers in health and social care is amazing:

350 careers. One NHS.

Your future.

Not only what the NHS (for training, education) can 'offer', but within that the number of nursing roles and specialities. The discussion inevitably drew the 'longevity' card. Students do pick on the temperature of their chosen community of practice. They recognise when they are surrounded (not literally!) by colleagues who have careers numbered in the several decades. But like a card the side that presents the occupational safe harbour from the threat posed by artificial intelligence, is countered by the seemingly relentless pressures imposed on nursing staff. The debates also revealed the pressure and negative impact of 'lived' work experiences for students and newly qualified nurses. I remember in the late 1970s early 1980s student nurses being counted as 'staff'. Have we really not progressed? I wrote 'offer' above because many students cannot get jobs once they have qualified. Not the best start to a shiny career. Having to fold, as they qualify.

Speaking of "career", can we please twist that? There is a great deal of talk - soul searching - about how on earth the (so-called) health service truly transforms itself to be health promoting and preventive. In the NHS's history perhaps there was a window of opportunity to begin in the late 1960s. Not so much a 'moonshot' as a healthshot. Now with the demographics that potential is being lost, unless this is positive way that AI can make up the shortfall? Alternately, nursing can utilise the health career, as in Hodges' model which are invariably impacted by an individual's life chances. As such there may be signs and signatures in the person's familial background? We can imagine a timeline composed of Hodges' model as 2x2 frames through a person's life, even prior to their conception and their legacy. 

More to follow . . .

Previously: 'RCN' : 'nursing' : 'power'

Please pardon the 'gambling' analogies, but we are literally asking students to gamble with their careers, financial status and well-being (life chances - no less). Should they be lost to the service, you can't blame young people. They know the logic of care, also known as demographics. They can do the maths? So who is it who can't do basic arithmetic?

3rd Healthcare Digital Technology Congress: Manchester

I greatly enjoyed Convenzis's Congress in Manchester at etc.venues. The early train journey (as 'us' Northerner's know very well) was not pleasant. Upon arrival I worried I might behave like a sardine in the lift up to the 8th floor. The venue is very convenient near Oxford Road and Piccadilly (I got off early at O. Rd). Manchester and Liverpool are well served for conference venues.

The journey was quickly forgotten, with a welcome coffee and breakfast. Networking started immediately thanks to a 'clear' twitter profile picture and some 'homework' with tweets the night before. Despite breakfast the exhibitor stands whetted the appetite for information at the breaks to follow.

These events are not just a help keep up-to-date #HealthIT #DigitalHealth wise, but a way to try to maintain some sense of balance as things are read while not experienced first-hand. Digital health is diverse and a reference during the day to juggling and its architecture was quite apt.The balance comes in countering the social media bubbles that (as users) we inhabit and are influenced by.

I'm not going to do a blow-by-blow account but Richard Price set the digital tone referring to technology development through the course of NHS's history:

- and The Topol Review (February 2019) and the digital future through Dr Eric Topol and a video:

As a scholar of literacy in its many forms I appreciated Richard's slide on the digital form. (Is this the same as 'information', or informatics' even?) This is interesting in being person-centred which at an individual level is not necessarily the same thing. Hopefully any e-careplan is formulated and constructed based on this, with time for data entry and practitioner-patient(person) engagement?

My thoughts or social media concerns here are based on tweets I have read which are often politicised and tied to related policy and the NHS Long Terms Plan. Health and Healthcare IS political, as previous posts have indicated. In contrast days like this and technical evangelism are a great experience for the optimism, technology, skills, problems solved and ongoing progress.

There was a question at the end of the day about AI artificial intelligence and how perhaps its role can be proven in less clinically applications. I was going to reply with the case of 'robotic process automation' which is gathering pace in other 'industries' such as insurance, recruitment and document management. Having experienced in the past new starters from universities have to retro-learn old applications and operating systems I was surprised to hear mention of 'Windows XP'. History - future all rolled up together.

In March I noticed a tweet andwell before I attended RCN Congress for the first time:

1 in 40 doctors participating in research compared to 1in 1, 000 nurses says Lord Willis @councilofdeans @JessicaCorner @KingsNursing @theRCN what can we do /enhance access and participation?

— anne marie rafferty (@annemarieraffer) March 13, 2019

Also on twitter I've wondered about wards, clinical teams having a 'research question' sitting on the shelf, if not a 'live' research project. Perhaps a ward could have three proposed questions that are revisited and even picked up by students. This could be part of the introduction to the placement and help raise awareness on several levels. At this event I spoke to InPhase and within the 'single assurance system' which was demonstrated to me there would be scope to incorporate such an initiative. Beyond this though ward managers, matrons and senior managers can have the tools such that 'data' about wards and even individual practitioners is available. While crucial (think CQC), this data turned into information and intelligence should not just be inspection fodder. There must be a clinical and research dividend to routine records. Also noted previously is the need for practitioners to manage their cases, their caseload.

A representative for Checkware explained their approach of patient involvement through self-reporting, self-management and long-distance follow-up. In terms of low-hanging fruit for computerisation this has long been one of them. The original box-ticking exercise that now seems to define the success or otherwise (mere completion?) of activities that it really shouldn't. After discussing copyright, patient engagement and the company's background I thought of Hodges' model (of course). I wanted to ask "What is the most general assessment tool you have?" There are many possible responses, but I didn't.

As a registered nurse I've always been defensive about patient data and what happens to it (IT). Consequently I've paid interest to data protection and public initiatives for e-records over the decades. It may be me, but I picked up a sense that a consensus within the public may be emerging? It's not even that the public were represented as such, just a sense from what was said. I may be wrong... and any optimism regards the maturity of the public's attitude to health e-record, does not equate to the maturity of the technology?

Hadleigh Stollar from NHSDigital explained the progress and plans of the National Record Locator Service, it’s success so far and benefits! This is pivotal for the experience of people with mental health problems in crisis and ambulance services. This is just the start. There was a phrase, LHCRE (which became 'lycra') that's "Local Health Care Records Exemplar" sites. There was a lot more with the Personal Health Record, a key example, as the event website indicates. The offerings of PureAV go far beyond the prompt for me to use video. Clinical Emergency Medicine Books - CEMbooks brought back some nursing memories. This was a very well organised, clearly well-planned Congress, informative, practical, with time for the exhibition and networking. Leaving at 1610 I even had a much better return journey.

Thanks to the Convenzis Team and etc.venues.