Regional Networks
Cathy Nichols
Chair – NZCPHCN Professional
Practice Committee
Are you thinking about starting
a College of Primary Health
Care (PHC) Nursing Regional
Network group and not sure
where to begin? The following
are some top tips from the
Chair of Wellington’s very
successful Regional Network
Group.
Firstly, why is such a group
worthy of your time and effort
to organise? We think there are
many reasons that might
persuade you and others to run
a group. The regional network
meetings are a great forum to
share information, meet with
other nurses, and build
relationships and integration
across the breadth of Primary
Health Care. The meetings also
enable having a generally
pleasant time with other health
professionals and such activity
is great evidence in your
professional development and
recognition
programme
portfolio.
December 2017 L.O.G.I.C.
Our advice is to start with a
small group of enthusiastic
nurses who will be the
organising committee. Have
enough
people
in your
committee to spread the
workload and keep “shoulder
tapping” for new members as
turnover is inevitable. Be
organised at your committee
meetings, have an agenda,
allocate activities, and keep
yourselves to time.
Decide on a broad topic, one
that suits as many nurses as
possible and covering the
multiple facets of Primary
Health Care nursing. Successful
topics for us have included,
renal health; drug and alcohol
abuse; respiratory conditions;
palliative care; advanced care
planning; wound care and
travel medicine.
Break the topic into two or
three sections, allowing for
different
aspects to
be
explored. Having more than
one
speaker can be useful, giving
the attendees different styles
of
presentations.
Choose
subject areas that you want to
know about as a PHC nurse as
other nurses are likely to find
the topic interesting too. We
have found that ensuring the
patients’ voice and the
psychological impact of any
situation
is
strongly
represented in the session has
been very popular. Having
client
case
studies
and
reflections from practice also
seems to enhance the learning.
We aim to make it very clear to
the speakers, who the audience
are and what type of work they
do. The diversity of primary
health care nurses can be quite
a challenge, however our
speakers
have
always
responded well and pitched the
information appropriately.
Speakers can be from a variety
of areas relating to the topic.
For the drug abuse session we
had speakers from Police
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