Celebrate success and continue momentum

One of the important intentions we highlight as part of our Creating Caring Cultures resources, is ‘celebrate success and continue momentum’. Celebrating success is one of the simplest ways to keep teams engaged and motivated. Staff who feel appreciated are more likely to remain engaged and work effectively. We have all heard the expression ‘success breeds success’; teams that focus on and celebrate success create more success – it becomes part of the culture – the way things are done. Staff want to work in successful teams and celebrating reminds them of this.

So, for a number of years, FoNS has held an annual celebration event to enable us to showcase the work that nurses and healthcare teams across health and social care are leading to help make care and services excellent.

This year as always there is much to celebrate …

Our Richard Tompkins scholarships are in their 6th year. This annual award creates a fantastic development opportunity for a registered nurse, midwife or health visitor who is leading a team and care services at the frontline of practice. Following participation in our IPDC International Practice Development School, scholars are mentored by a FoNS facilitator to embed and expand their learning and develop new ways of working. I have been fortunate to support two scholars and experiences first-hand how they have transformed as individuals and practitioners. Meeting with one of last year’s scholars recently was a joy as I listened to how her new approaches to working and leading are enhancing the experiences of those using services and staff – much to celebrate.

To read more about the 2018 Scholars and the achievements of past scholars go to the Richard Tompkins Scholarship pages.

We are also celebrating with the final cohort of our Patients First Programme. Over the past eight years, 90 nurses-led teams and numerous patients and carers have experienced the benefit of Patients First. Supported by the Burdett Trust for Nursing, this programme quickly developed a record of successful innovations and personal development. At a time when the quality of healthcare and nursing practice was under tremendous scrutiny, Patients First offers teams a fantastic opportunity to show how nurses, midwives and health visitors are leading innovation and championing a practice culture where care is the best it can be. While this programme is coming to an end, we are delighted to have several poster presentations celebrated at the event.

The momentum for this work has not be lost, on the contrary, this year we have launched a new initiative ‘Inspire Improvement’, which will see the development of a cadre of new FoNS Improvement Fellows.

Visit the website to find out more about the Inspire Improvement Programme.

Another group of teams who we will be celebrating tonight are the participants from our partnership programme with Care England, ‘Teaching Care Homes’. Supported by the Burdett Trust for Nursing, this programme aims to develop and support a community or network of homes that demonstrate ongoing commitment to person-centred care along with being great centres for learning, practice development and research. We are delighted to have representatives from both the pilot programme and new cohort joining the celebration and sharing some of the developments achieved.

To find out more about Teaching Care Homes and those taking part please visit Teaching Care Homes pages.

A final aspect of our work we celebrate every year is the International Practice Development Journal, published in association with the International Development Collaborative. Now in is eighth year, this peer reviewed open access journal (free for authors and readers) has gone from strength to strength with the support of our editorial team. I felt very proud recently to hear feedback from an author about how positive the experience of publishing in the journal was; she highlighted how the values or person-centredness were experienced at every phase from initial contact to final editing.

Visit the IPDJ pages to read more about the IPDJ and download papers.

It is great to see the pride in the people we have worked with as they receive awards and showcase their work. As a team, I believe it is also important for us to acknowledge our achievements and feel a sense pride in the work we have led and opportunities we have created. Being able to do this gives us a boost and enables us to maintain momentum and seek out new ways in which we can support and help create cultures across health and social care where person-centred ways of work are embraced, where care is the best it can be and staff feel valued and supported; an important aspiration as we approach NHS 70!

To find out more about Creating Caring Cultures and celebrating success, go to the website.