Primary care nurses from across the country gathered at Alexandra Palace in London for the first Primary Care Nursing Expo (PCN Expo) run by MA Healthcare Conferences on 7 and 8 February 2014.
Around 300 delegates, practice nurses, nurse practitioners health visitors, school nurses, health care assistants and district nurses, attended in total over the two days.
The delegates rotated between eight workshops in different clinical areas: COPD, women's health, dermatology, diabetes, immunisation, nutrition and smoking cessation. Each workshop was CPD accredited and was delivered by a leading professional in the clinical area. Speakers included: Darush Attar-Zadeh, National Trainer in smoking cessation; Beverley Bostock-Cox, Clinical Lead at Education for Health and Guest Lecturer at Imperial College London; Julie Van Onselen, Dermatologist, Educator and Consultant; and Anne Phillips, Senior Lecturer in Diabetes Care at the University of York.
Sarah Tarrant, a practice nurse from Sudbury, described the various workshops as ‘absolutely superb'. ‘In particular, the talk about diabetes treatment was informative, positive, succint and engaging. This was a really good opportunity for updating education through the variety of zones,' she added.
Kalada Begum, a nurse advisor, said that the exhibition had also been informative. ‘The smoking cessation lecture, in particular, was outstanding. It was interactive, was well-organised and well coordinated.'
Lin Cook, a practice nurse, said that there was a good cross-section of subjects covered relevant to nurses in primary care. ‘All of the talks had a good evidence-base and I learnt things that I had not known before.'
The event was sponsored by Independent Nurse, Nurse Prescribing, Practice Nursing, The British Journal of School Nursing, The British Journal of Community Nursing and the Journal of Health Visiting.
All of the lectures are available from http://www.mahealthcareevents.co.uk/pcnexpo/0214/presentations for delegates and details of next years event will appear in due course on www.pcnexpo.com.