Laying the foundations and building relationships

Friday night was Leeds Respiratory Network (LRN) 3^rd educational committee meeting.

First of all let’s rewind and remind ourselves how we got to this point.  Two nurses initially set up LRN to try and reduce variation in respiratory care through education. This was achieved by organising evening meetings and developing a mailing list of interested people. This mailing list was used to send out respiratory updates and guidance but also a way to communicate progress of the network and articulate the vision as it developed. The mailing list keeps growing and hundreds of people have come along on our journey with us as we have progressed. (leedsrespiratory.network@nhs.net)

In April 2015 our social enterprise Respiratory Care Solutions was born! Since then, as well as being full time mothers, running our homes, keeping down the day job, studying at university and meditating with monks in Asia we have been laying the foundations for our social enterprise. We decided that LRN would be the educational arm of our business and we needed help. We decided the best way forward would be to set up an education committee to help us plan our education meetings etc.

So we were starting to get an idea of interested people and we sent an email asking people who would like to come on board to get in contact. We also contacted secondary care and community to see if they would like to get involved. So in October 2015 we had our first educational committee meeting explaining our intentions and asked if they would like to join us on our mission. There was an air of excitement but also apprehension and nervousness. We were open and honest that we didn’t have a clue how it would turn out and that we could just try it. So where are we now?

 

Nine months down the line we have organised two evening meetings and our upcoming conference on Friday 30^th September. (http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/leeds-respiratory-network-conference-tickets-25601327259) . The social enterprise paid for a few of our committee members to attend the PCRS leadership course in June and we are also taking 7 committee members to the PCRS annual conference in October. (https://www.pcrs-uk.org/clinical-leadership-programme) The buzz in that room on Friday night was amazing! We nearly lost one amazing nurse after the first meeting due to fear but we maintained contact with her and encouraged her to go on the leadership course. We agreed that after she attended the course if she didn’t want to be apart of the committee we would leave her alone and never bother her again.  Thankfully after that she attended the meeting on Friday and has decided to come to the next leaders event in November.  They were all very courageous to get in a car with strangers and travel across the country together to go and do something that would take them out of their comfort zones!

 We have all bonded now and we feel safe and comfortable to be open and honest. In these hard and difficult times the NHS is facing there was so much hope and positive energy in that room planning for a brighter future. I felt honoured to be in a room full of passionate, enthusiastic, inspiring professionals that give their own time to do this. I don’t know if they have realised it yet, but their job now is to find other leaders and develop them.  

It hasn’t taken up too much of our time to organise and develop these meetings. The only down side to having meetings on a Friday night is that your feet hurt from dancing into the early hours of Saturday morning ;)