Welcome to an update of the Cygnet Annual Nursing Conference and awards ceremony that took place over at the National Conference Centre.

Just to let you know the perspective of the Nursing conference is from a carer’s perspective. I will not always repeat what took place, but might review its importance or my understanding of the event.

The Cygnet Nursing Conference took place on the 9th of May 2024 from 10:00 am till 4:30 pm, so the event was packed with updates, keynote speakers, Breakout Sessions and Awards along with certificate graduations.

You can also watch the video promotion of the event below.

I would just like to mention that in my carer engagement role, I have never been to a nursing conference before, so I was not sure what to expect. I was worried a lot of things would go over my head or there would be too much Jargon. This is important if involved patient and carers from expert by experience are attending professional events.

The evening before carer ambassadors and expert by experience were treated to a lovely meal at the Premier Inn hotel over in Birmingham.

I had not seen a few Cygnet carer ambassadors for a while, so it was great to connect and hear updates. With support from Cygnet Carer lead Laura Sheridan I was made to feel welcome. In fact we all were welcomed by David Wilmott who is Cygnet’s Director of Nursing. David has a strong nursing background and has a focus and passion for making nursing a special career for Cygnet staff.

I have to admit I did not pay too much attention to the Conference agenda beforehand, but to my surprise, it turned out some of the Keynote speakers were at premier inn meal. I had a chat with Stephen Jones who is the Head of nursing practice for mental health at the Royal College of Nursing. Did you know I am involved in a few RCN projects?

I also had a chat to Jane Murkin who is the Deputy Director of Safety and Improvement at NHS England.

It was great to see two professionals passionate about the nursing profession and I was interested to hear what they were going to say.

On the day of the conference the weather was pleasant and so was the atmosphere of the conference. Everyone was friendly and welcoming as they looked forward to the agenda. It was not long before we had welcome and introductions from David Wilmott who thanked those in attendance and mentioned how important it is to congratulate each other. David mentioned that it takes a lot to not only help others who are vulnerable, but also to help each other and ourselves.

We then had a welcome from Dr Tony Romero who is the CEO of Cygnet. Tony showed his support for those in attendance as he prepared staff for a special day.

Next to present from a video message was Prof Deborah Sturdy who is the Chief Nurse for Adult Social care at the Department of Health and Social Care. She also thanked those in attendance, but made note that we must join networks with people and their communities.

Stephen Jones presents

It was not long before we had our first Keynote speaker. This was Stephen Jones who I met the day before and had an interesting discussion about carer involvement.

Stephen spoke about Psychosocial Interventions in Mental Health Nursing. Interventions along with coproduction and codesign are the things I am involved in at the RCN. Stephen spoke about these very things and how these programmes are developed at the Royal College of Nursing.

Stephen spoke about those who promote these programmes at the RCN and the work they do.

He also mentioned why Mental Health Nursing is so important regarding psychosocial interventions. Stephen stressed that Psychosocial interventions are not a replacement for structured psychological therapy, medication or other evidence-based treatments, but work with and inform these treatments to provide a conprehensive approach to mental health care.

Stephen made his presentation easy to understand as he broke down the roles of mental health nursing. Stephen also spoke about the The Nursing and Midwifery Council, which is the regulator for nursing and midwifery professions in the UK. The NMC maintains a register of all nurses, midwives and specialist community public health nurses and nursing associates eligible to practise within the UK.

Jane Murkin NHS – Keynote Speaker

We then heard from Jane Murkin who is the deputy director of Safety and Improvement in Nursing at NHS England

Jane spoke about her reflection on nursing and delivering the best outcomes for people. She also promoted that we should consider our roles and responsibility when it comes to improving services. Jane touched on some of NHS England’s improvement approach and impact. Plus she finished up by providing an overview of the national strategic nursing priorities.

It was refreshing to hear Jane mention the importance of families, carers and patients being involved to help change systems of service delivery.

Rebecca Burgess-Dawson Presents

The third keynote speaker was Rebecca who is the National clinical lead at South West Yorkshire Parnership NHS Foundation trust.

Her presentatation was a passionate talk about mental health nursing and its overview. She challenged the audience to think closely on what mental health nursing is percived to be and why she feels cygnet has carefully thought about its identity and service when it comes to mental health nursing.

We then had a coffee break with a chance to network which then led onto how Quality Improvement helped services at one of Cygnet sites. This was presented by Rosie Hodgson-Whittle who is the Interim Hospital Manager at Cygnet Appletree.

Rosie talked about the implementation of the 7Cs Tool which aid and improve services regarding patient observations, collaboration and identifying not only the problems, but also the solutions.

Cygnet Nursing strategy

It was then back to David Wilmott who introduced Laura Sheridan and Raf Hamza on the co-production of Cygnets Nursing strategy. We heard from Raf Hamza on why lived experience should be included in developments on such strategies.

Next was more networking and lunch, where I took the time to speak to some staff and catch up with keynote speakers. I glanced through the Cygnet annual nursing conference booklet and felt the design, feel and presentation was inviting. It was easy to understand and had a professional feel to it.

Ellie Gordon presents

After lunch we heard from more keynote speakers. The first being Ellie Gordon who is the Senior Nurse for Learning disability at NHS England. Ellie talked about the importance of education and the inclusion of Nursing Associates.

Oxleas presents on Embedding Relational Security – See Think Act.

I have close links with Oxleas due to my carer forums and groups. So it was a delight to see Oxleas support the Cygnet Nursing Conference.

We got to hear from Naidoo Armoordon who is the Head of Nursing at Oxleas.

Naidoo was joined by Emma Hopkins who is the practice development nurse in the Accute & Crisis Directorate. Oxleas wanted to Showcase the transformative power of ( See Think Act ) relational secutiy knowledge and how this can be applied through a trauma informed lens.

This would be done through strong leadership within the acute inpatient setting and help enchance staff and patient well-being with a culture of excellence at Oxleas Wards.

Naidoo spoke about why such tools are needed especially when nurses face difficult challenges on the wards. As you can see from the chart below.

Emma provided a case study of a patient and how those tools produce better outcomes.

Nursing in the United states

This section was presentated by Karen Johnson who is the Chief Clinical Officer and Senior Vice Presendent in Behavioural Health at UHS. Karen was joined by Valerie Devereaux who is the Vice President of Nursing and Behavioural Health at UHS.

Cygnet is a subsidiary of Universal Health Services, which is based in the states. UHS owns and operates 400 facilities across 39 US states including Washington D.C, Puerto Rico and of course the UK. These sites include

Acute Care Hospitals
Ambulatory Surgery Centers
Behavioral Health Facilities
Freestanding Emergency Departments

Karen spoke about the state of US health care, which included the length of stay within inpatient facilities and residential facilities. She focused on the importance of the US 2024 National Suicide Strategy and the focus on

Community-Based Suicide Prevention
Treatment and Crisis Services
Surveilance, Quality Improvement and Research
Health Equity in Suicide Prevention

It was interesting to hear what the Nursing Trends and challenges are in the US as there seems to be similar challenges over in the states as well as in the UK.

Breakout sessions

Next we had a choice of 4 Breakout sessions where I attened 2 of those sessions

Caring for a person with Diabetes
Intervention and escalation of an unwell person
Role of engagement when performing observations
Support and engagement in social care

I was interested in the session regarding diabetes, since my mother suffered greatly with the illness.

I remember the difficult challanges of trying to care not only for her mental health, but how her physical health was in a serious situation.

Cygnet Nursing awards

This section of the conference was one of the events I was looking forward to. I wanted to see what the nursing staff were celebrated for and how they were celebrated. You get to hear the works Cygnet Nursing staff carry out during such awards.

I was not disappointed as I watched David present awards. I heard how Julie won her award for the work she does with carers at the Cygnet Hexham site

I also observed not only the nursing awards. but also graduation certificates which was presented by Mandy ianchard who is Cygnet’s Head of Learning & Development.

Overall I enjoyed the day and felt I was not only watching the conference, but was also a part of it.

Thank you Cygnet