To help connect nurses in their region, Sigma’s Europe Region hosts a biennial conference to exchange ideas around research, education and professional practice and to facilitate networking, collaboration, and friendship. Bournemouth University and Sigma’s Phi Mu Chapter are hosting the 7th European Region Sigma Conference in Bournemouth, England, 26-28 June 2024.
This year’s theme is Promoting Global Nursing: Education, Research and Practice to Meet Tomorrow’s Health and Care Needs. Interested in learning more about the content that will be covered during the event? View presentation highlights below.
The Disproportionate Use of Force in Mental Health Settings: Time to Flip the Narrative
With Professor Joy Duxbury, OBE
The disproportionality of care related to certain vulnerable populations continues to be of significant concern, and I am passionate about understanding people’s experiences in endeavours to make a difference to practice and policy. Nursing is central to those experiences and at the heart of ensuring that everyone feels safe, understood, cared for, and treated with parity.
The disproportionate use of force in mental health settings and beyond is a significant issue in the modern-day care of the most vulnerable individuals in society. A range of inequalities are evident and impact the quality of care that certain populations experience.
The disparities are extensive and include matters pertaining to ethnicity, age, gender, and disorder. These clearly affect the experiences of those involved and need to be addressed. In order to do this, we need not only to understand the extent and nature of the problem in terms of accurate reporting but also how to understand the challenges faced by all parties.
In my presentation, I will share some of the evidence base on the current position and highlight research we have been working on to co-create new ways of working that align to the values and principles of minimising restrictive practices; recognising the multicomplex nature of the issues; and therefore, the need for multimodal trauma-informed and human-rights-orientated approaches.
Joy is a Professor of mental health at Manchester Metropolitan University in Manchester, England.
Promoting Global Nursing Through Entrepreneurship: Opportunities to Create Societal Value
With Professor Michael Shannon,
Entrepreneurship and innovation are critically important for the expansion, visibility, and understanding of the nursing profession. I am passionate about this area of research because the concept of entrepreneurship can guide the promotion of social visibility of nursing, as well as influence professional development for nurses to meet future health challenges.
Globally, healthcare faces multiple major challenges, highlighting the critical need for innovative solutions to systemic problems. In this context, entrepreneurship and innovation are becoming increasingly important concepts as they open new opportunities and possibilities for nurses and midwives to create further value for society at large.
Evidence suggests that the scope of nursing and midwifery entrepreneurship remains unknown and therefore the prospects of entrepreneurial and innovation activities remain not fully realised. Therefore, the context of innovation and entrepreneurship in nursing and midwifery is critically important for the development, visibility, and consolidation of the professions and enables opportunities to reach new levels of professional development. Yet, liberating nursing and nurses/midwives to innovate and enhance practices through transformation and change does not occur in isolation. Additionally, those unwilling to innovate are often left behind.
The aim of this presentation is to explore the opportunities and challenges associated with embedding an entrepreneurship and innovation culture into the fabric of nursing and midwifery professions. Four specific pillars will be highlighted: leadership, policy, academia, and practice.
Michael is a Professor and Dean of faculty at the University of Medicine and Health Sciences in Dublin, Ireland. He is also a member of Sigma’s Omega Epsilon at-Large Chapter.
The Identity of Nursing in Healthcare Teams in War and Disasters
With Lieutenant General (Rtd) Professor Martin Bricknell,
Success in healthcare delivery is dependent on interprofessional teamwork. I believe that the evolution of mutual respect and collaboration between professions within the armed forces might have relevance to wider healthcare settings.
The evolution of nursing within the armed forces has had wider influence on nursing in civilian settings. Breaking down professional and gender barriers across health professions within Defence Medical Services may provide insights for further interdisciplinary working in the future.
This presentation will review the relationship between the medical and nursing professions in the British Army as sentinel indicator of the deepening mutual respect and cross-professional leadership in the Army Medical Services over the last 150 years. It will argue that the separate identity of each profession was critical to enable nursing to establish an identity based on competence rather than gender. This can be illustrated by the evolution of the nursing profession in the British Army with female nurses being employed in a separate corps from male nurses. The merging of Army nursing by profession into a single corps and the amalgamation of training for nurses and medics into single training centre in the 1990s unified the nursing profession and broke the gender discrimination. Since then, military nurses have had an increasingly prominent role in the leadership and management of the Army Medical Services with selection for these generic roles being gender and profession agnostic. The presentation will close with a discussion on the clinical, managerial, and leadership experiences that are essential for healthcare teams in war and disasters and how this might shape global nursing.
Martin served 34 years in the UK Defence Medical Services, finishing his service as the Surgeon General of the UK Armed Forces. He is currently a Professor in conflict, health, and military medicine at King's College London.