RCN Congress 2026 & RCN North West Multicultural Group (NWMG)

England's North West is certainly in the news at present, on two counts:

1. The current Labour party machinations in the Makerfield ward;
2. and RCN Congress in Liverpool.

 As I attend Congress a key focus is the debates and how I can relate these to Hodges'model - (with some links to previous posts):

1. Nursing as a STEM profession
Matter for discussion submitted by the Eastern Board
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses the recognition of nursing as a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) profession, valuing the scientific, technical and analytical expertise of nurses.

STEM - science : technology : engineering : mathematics

2. Safe, ethical, person‑centred nursing
Resolution submitted by the Cheshire Branch
That this meeting of RCN Congress calls on RCN Council to urgently develop and implement a UK‑wide framework for realistic person‑centred care, ensuring that nursing practice is safe and ethical.

safe : ethics : person-centred 

3. Regular redeployment
Matter for discussion submitted by the Wiltshire Branch
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses the impact of the daily redeployment of nursing staff on morale, team work and patient safety.

re- deployment

4. Unpaid hours
Matter for discussion submitted by the North East London Inner Branch
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses the culture of nursing staff missing breaks and working beyond their contracted hours.

work

5. National safety standards for lone working
Resolution submitted by the Health and Safety Reps Committee
That this meeting of RCN Congress calls on RCN Council to lobby for the implementation of national safety standards for lone working, ensuring access to appropriate safety equipment, technology and protocols to protect staff across all care settings.

lone working

6. Accountable, compassionate and psychologically safe leadership
Matter for discussion submitted by the Cheshire Branch
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses how the RCN can help create a culture where accountability, compassion, and psychological safety coexist, enabling managers to lead effectively while ensuring all staff feel respected and protected.

accountability : compassion : leadership 

7. Misinformation in health care
Matter for discussion submitted by the Women's Health Forum
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses misinformation in health care and the impact this has on the nursing workforce.

misinformation : information disorder

8. Confidence to address racism
Matter for discussion submitted by the South West London Outer Branch
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses how to build the confidence of nursing staff in addressing racism.

confidence : racism

Once again the North West Multicultural Group will have a stand:

The RCN North West Multicultural Group (NWMG) creates a community for members across the region from multicultural ethnic backgrounds to connect with each other, share their lived experience, knowledge and diverse ideas that help drive change around racism to ensure that their various organisations is the best place to work.

Membership is open to RCN members of Royal College of Nursing from multicultural backgrounds and their allies.

Mission statement: 

The aim of the North West Multicultural Group is to stand against racism and discrimination by using members lived experiences, encouraging organisations to be anti-racist and with the support of allies.  

Aims and objectives: 

• To raise the issues around race, discrimination and equality in the workplace and to find potential solutions. 
• To challenge misconceptions about people from different ethnic backgrounds.
• To recognise the skills and contribution to care for people from all backgrounds make.
• To acknowledge that racism is a social construct that needs to be eradicated together.  Together we are stronger.
• To be a platform for black, Asian and minority ethnic staff and allies to work collaboratively to address racism in practice.
• To help amplify the voice black, Asian and minority ethnic staff.
• To be role models, set examples as allies and develop confidence.
• To provide training and support about anti-racist practice.
• To work with the RCN to support campaigns to make sure communication is fit for purpose and acknowledges any cultural differences. 

Your executive team:

Chair: Olanike Babalola
Vice Chair: Susan Owen-Naz
Communications Officer: Mark Anthony

9. Advanced nursing practice
Resolution submitted by RCN Council
That this meeting of RCN Congress agrees that the RCN will act upon attempts to undermine advanced nursing practice.

advanced : practice : theory

10. 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.

protect

11. 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.

quality : placement

12. Bank rates
Resolution submitted by the South Yorkshire Branch
That this meeting of RCN Congress demands that employers pay nursing staff bank shifts at their substantive rate.

pay

13. Are external reviews meaningful?
Matter for discussion submitted by the Midwifery Forum
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses whether external reviews and inquiries are genuinely driving meaningful improvements in safety across health and social care.

inquiry : review

14. Improving acute mental health crisis services for children and young people
Resolution submitted by the London Board
That this meeting of RCN Congress calls on RCN Council to lobby UK governments to improve the provision of services to children and young people presenting in acute mental health crisis.

children : mental health

15. Access to specialist pain services
Matter for discussion submitted by the Pain and Palliative Care Forum
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses access to specialist pain services and the role of the registered nurse in caring for those in pain.

pain

16. Palliative and end-of-life care
Resolution submitted by the Pain and Palliative Care Forum
That this meeting of RCN Congress calls on RCN Council to lobby UK governments to ensure everyone living across all 4 nations has access to specialist palliative and end-of-life care.

palliative

17. Accessible and affordable travel
Matter for discussion submitted by the North Central London Inner Branch
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses what accessible and affordable travel means for the nursing workforce.

18. Uptake of physical health checks
Resolution submitted by the Public Health Forum
That this meeting of RCN Congress requests RCN Council to lobby UK governments to improve the uptake of physical health checks for people with learning disabilities and serious mental illnesses (SMI).

serious mental illness (SMI)

19. Eye donation
Matter for discussion submitted by the Greater Glasgow Branch
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses the role nursing has in eye donation in end-of-life care planning.

eye : vision

20. 35-hour week
Resolution submitted by the Lothian and Borders Branch
That this meeting of RCN Congress calls on RCN Council to instigate a campaign for a maximum 35 hour working week for the nursing workforce.

21. Inappropriate delegation
Matter for discussion submitted by the Berkshire Branch
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses the delegation of health care tasks to school staff and non-health care professionals.

22. Access to medicinal cannabis
Matter for discussion submitted by the Cheshire Branch
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses the impact of current NHS prescribing practice on access to medicinal cannabis.

medicinal cannabis

23. SPA time
Resolution submitted by the Wiltshire Branch
That this meeting of RCN Congress calls on RCN Council to lobby for the inclusion of Supporting Professional Activities (SPA) time in all nursing job-plans.

See: https://www.rcn.org.uk/Congress/Agenda 

Are there any lessons from this exercise? Well, I have no posts tagged 'donor', or 'medicinal cannabis' - to make an important distinction. Something to correct and try to follow this week. 

See you there ...?

(I may need to reduce the link-count here.) 

Paper: How social workers reflect in action and when and why they don’t [Mapped to h2cm]

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

The self - personhood Reflection (as core concept) has value and limitations Non-reflection to protect the self Unbearable anxiety psychoanalysis - findings defended nature of the self thinking & non-thinking 'suspended self-preservation' Self - Two perspectives - Service User emotional intelligence internal supervision intuition - improvisation Reflexive Helicoptering - metacognition Sexuality (form of bracketing-off of oneself)* lived experience of the senses RATIONALE

Theories of reflection Frameworks for reflection (reflective practice) physical / somatic effects of anxiety ethnographic study audio recordings Reflective practice demands that you learn from experience. It requires you to be self-critical. It expects you to analyse what you think, feel, and do... #When is it better NOT to reflect? 'Containment' 'splitting' risks (being completely non-reflective) experiences and the (mobile) body TECHNICAL

*limits capacity of some aspects of relational work  Social Work Practice Home visits Family home children and parents 'tacit knowing-in-action' Reflection in Practise Fieldwork - home, car SW composed when service users in distress, absorb their sadness, shame, fears, and at times their joy # Face-to-Face interviews Relationships: sexuality, gender offloading informally - office

Social Work / Clinical Case Supervision  offloading formally Two Local Authorities Management Supervision and Governance Child protection Power Organisational risk management Policies, Procedures Lone working... Influence in 'advocacy' [comment on twitter - see below] (as a Professional or 'Independent'?)

Harry Ferguson (2018): How social workers reflect in action and when and why they don’t: the possibilities and limits to reflective practice in social work, Social Work Education, DOI: 10.1080/02615479.2017.1413083

My source: Twitter
 

Online: Hodges' model in Safety presentation

Later this week I've an online presentation to deliver. The brief is to introduce Hodges' model and relate the model to the matter of safety - some thoughts ...

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

PATIENT safety Task: Attention - Concentration Rest - Sleep psychological environment - safety to ERR is human HUMAN as weakest link risk to SELF Cognitive support - lists, names, informational analysis of environment Critical thinking Situational awareness Therapeutic - OBSERVATIONS ethics- video surveillance

PATIENT - PROCESS safety  - e.g. diagnosis, handover physical safety: 1st law 1st aid. SELF-harm : SELF-neglect Assessments, Plan, Evaluation environment:safety, construction, buildings occupational/disciplinary safety Comms - Information theory  safety as security: lone working signals - alarms, protocols medical safety: medicines, devices risk reduction - management Human factors Human- Computer/Tech/AI Interaction Research - Records Interfaces Public Health Safety: Food, Pollution

risk to others stereotypes - assumptions risk from others - bullying social media teamwork: simulation PRACTICE safety

Law - Health & Safety Reporting - Statistics Transparency Mandatory Training / Learning Whistleblowing safety standards ISO safety organisations The Learning Organisation Other sectors e.g. Aviation, Formula 1 ... Risk of 'groupthink'

 Is it a risk to assume parity of estem in patient safety? What of 'a' patient's safety?

safety
https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/search?q=safety

Innovations: From Myths To Reality (Revisiting - Berkun, 2007)

Even though Brexit may have normalised hoarding, temporarily(?) at an economic level, I've been sorting some books to 'go' because of  'new' arrivals. Here then are some further reflections on Hodges' model as an innovation in response to Scott Berkun's 2007 title. As you can see there are many overlaps between Berkun's myths of innovation, which in the book are each given a chapter:

Myth #1: The Myth of the Epiphany

The creation of Hodges' model by Brian Hodges in the mid-1980s might be likened to an epiphany of sorts. I didn't ask that particular question when we met in 1998. It was however, more accurately a solution to the forthcoming challenge of Project 2000 and the revolution in the nurse education from schools of nursing to university based, undergraduate courses of study.



This educational, theory and practice-based focus is evident in the four purposes for the model's creation:

1. Person-centred - holistic care;
2. To bridge the theory - practice gap;
3. To facilitate reflection and reflective practice;
4. To support curriculum development.

If we are talking 'myths' too, how many of these issues were at the model's creation in the mid-1980s what we would term legacy issues now?

Myth #2: We Understand the History of Innovation

If the rise of ideas and the existence of 'fads' suggests that innovations wax and wane - falling out of fashion then - yes. There is a history. I'm assuming that the emphasis on models and theory development in nursing is past its 'golden age'? Whether we understand innovation in the healthcare, medicine, nursing, other disciplines is another question; especially socio-technically. I will return to this at #4.

Myth #3: There is a Method For Innovation

In healthcare there is a method: it is, the method (and methodology of) research that provides evidence for practice and hopefully policy.

(There's brainstorming too of course - for which h2cm is the gift.)

Myth #4: People Love New Ideas

New starters and students in many lines of work are usually made aware of their potential and status (wanted or not) as 'change agents'. Student nurses should be torch-bearers of new ideas that are evidence-based. Whatever our age as lifelong learners we should always be open to new ideas, especially with the advantages that experience brings to the work and testbench of ideas. Constructive criticism should help - by definition - to construct.

So often though, there is marked resistance to ideas whatever 'age' they are. The ongoing mantras are "We've always done it this way!"; or "This is quicker! Tried and tested!" ...

For the past decade (at least) the UK economy has been plagued by a productivity crunch. This is also affecting health care. Myths 1-4 can also be considered under the heading of 'progress'. How much do we understand 'progress'? An examination must reveal productivity and innovation as fundamental elements.

Myth #5: The Lone Inventor

As I may have mentioned before when we were taught Hodges' model (1987-1988 Manchester Polytechnical College - MMU) as students and informed that we must apply h2cm in a marked case study/assignment there were some mutterings. Students often contribute to the development and testing of countless theories and models.

Brian did not publish much on the model beyond a book chapter. In this sense there is a lone inventor and a lone champion drawing an immense number of additional sources (here since 2006 for example).

Myth #6: Good Ideas Are Hard to Find

Ideas are not hard to find. For Hodges' model this is quite ironic. Ironic because, of course, the model provides a net to help 'capture' not just good ideas - but a brainstorm full of them.

There's something even more important though:

Hodges' model can help us find ideas not as 'good' or 'bad' in the first instance, but to test the ideas across contexts to see how an idea might perform. Only then is an idea 'good' and suitable for purpose (see #9).

Myth #7: Your Boss Knows More About Innovation Than You

The defences of ritualised practice and accepted (ideas) practice are well established ...

• Not invented here!
• Not created - owned by me!
• Who is Hodges?

Social media constantly espouses on 'true' leadership and how power is exercised and distributed (if at all), but for many leaders power is a factor and the pedigree of the ideas and strategies that are deployed is a political football.

Myth #8: The Best Ideas Win

The videotape recording standards is a regular lesson here. The best ideas often do not win.

Sometimes building something is not enough ... or is it?

Whatever the 'truth' here - I still believe there is a great resource in this model.

Is h2cm a compound instrument?
Is h2cm an implicit holistic theory?
Is h2cm a series of conceptual spaces?
Is h2cm all of these ... ?

I also believe the challenge of individual and population health has a long-tail as a legacy problem.

Whether h2cm 'wins' or not - its relevance for the problems and solutions of the 21st and 22nd centuries grows each day ...

Myth #9: Problems and Solutions

Management and organisational gurus often extol the virtue of 360 degree vision. Hodges' model can encourage this as there are several dimensions and dichotomies 'embedded' within. Of particular note in myth 9 is objective versus subjective qualities - and what counts as good or bad (to follow).

A key in healthcare is that 'the' problem is not ours.

It is 'ours' - if factors impose upon clinical decision making are a distraction 

- such as economics.

Identifying what the problem is - requires that we validate and integrate several sources of information: the referrer, the person - patient/client with the problem and what can be observed and investigated.

In healthcare again there is a need for co-production and Hodges' model can play a role in this. Sometimes the 'solution' may not be what is expected when a patient's choices are taken into account.  Hodges' model can work to the patient's strengths and the situation. The model can be used explicitly or implicitly to help assure the working out of the problems and the solution. A by-product of this is that we are prompted in consequence to ask questions and act on an individual's health and other literacies. What becomes evident given the challenges of productivity, demographics, public engagement is a gap in our understanding were co-production is concerned.

Myth #10: Innovation is Always Good

Berkun highlights how some innovations are not always good. H2cm may be challenging in terms of fears of 'runaway' reflection or navel-gazing. Could h2cm lend itself to a mechanistic response to problems. Is that a robot I can hear?

Could h2cm be a gift to those who wish to deskill the health and social workforce?

From models of care and theories of nursing to checklist A, B, C & D?

Use of the model on paper is one thing, but what of e-based forms of application? How can we assure accessibility to the model? Can we make an e-reflective workbench a reality for our students?

As noted in #9 the need for research to innovate in co-production, collaborative, person-centred care within developed and developing health care systems remains marked.

Scott Berkun (2007) The Myths of Innovation, CA: O'Reilly.

Child well-being, Silver Superdreams, DEEP care and DEEPer voices

On the website [archived 2015 - page may not remain] there's a small page that highlights DEEP things...

That is DEEP ECOLOGY, DEEP TIME, DEEP SPACE and of course DEEP CARE. These days it seems everything is DEEP. So it isn't noise that's damaging your ear drums it's pressure.

When I wrote that page deep care was left to fend for itself (there's a books worth there I bet); but then I remembered a day as a student...

In those days I had a silver Honda 250cc Superdream. I'd swear that bike had a built in gyro (except for the time I dropped it in the snow). The bike not only helped me with the a2b; on community experience I had to spend a day at a children's home...

The day started at 2pm working through to 9-10pm. Many of the kids were not yet home from school. So I was able to chat with the house-mothers as the two female staff members were called and I do remember their names. This was a quiet interlude before the chaos ensued. It was spring and the 'instructions' were - when the children are home, join-in outside while tea is prepared.

Well, arrive they did and there I was in this big garden playing football and inevitable rough and tumble with the lads. While all this was going on I could see the house-mothers at the window watching. Watching a bit more. Then not just watching: staring. Was I doing something wrong (and who was cooking tea)?

Anyway, a bell announced tea time to be followed with more antics outside then some indoor games and then time for bed. Stories first of course. I was asked to take a youngster upstairs and settle him down. He couldn't have been more than 5. On my shoulders up the stairs. A brief flight through the air along a carefully judged flight-path suddenly filled with giggles to find the book...

As I started to read one of the house-mothers came in and started to tidy the room and I suppose keep an eye on me. I like reading. As I read that feeling returned - being watched just like in the garden. This time it was a pair of very young eyes doing the staring, with an open-mouthed intensity that was dry-mouth disturbing. Next, I noticed the house-mother had stopped what she was doing to watch and listen. OK: What was going on? We reached a point were the book closed and it was time for lights out and prayers.

Then I was asked for a kiss.

It wasn't that I was upset or anything, but it was the way this little guy asked.

Now I know there are all sorts of considerations these days, equality and diversity, sex and gender roles. This WAS ALL about equality and diversity and something wasn't right.

I responded with that student-male awkwardness that I wasn't about to kiss him, but it would be great to shake his hand and say thanks for everything - the soccer, chocs, drawings, thumbs up for the bike....

So, phew - lights out upstairs - it was time for twenty questions downstairs.

As the home got quieter by the second, the questions were well-formed, but had to wait as I joined the two house mothers sitting at the kitchen table for tea/coffee. Straight away they guessed my star-sign: Aquarius. OK... Then they apologised for staring earlier. I acknowledged that this hadn't gone unnoticed. They explained how pleased and totally fascinated they were to see the young boys able to interact in ways that they - try as they might - just cannot manage. The house-mothers usually read the stories and while I'm no bass-baritone, my voice - a lone male voice - had really struck a cord.

Unfortunately, back then there were issues about recruiting male staff members. I passed on those same concerns and my experience to the school of nursing. The house-mothers agreed that as a consequence there were potential future mental health issues being incubated there - the clients of tomorrow. They were trying to bring about change themselves.

That day will stay with me - I hope. As I rode home I knew it was a real gem in terms of learning experience. Scary, the notions of 'self' and 'others'. I wonder how things have changed in the homes and in society at large?