20 November 2017

On 10 November, the Association of Coloproctology Nurses’ group ran their first Resource Development Day at the Salts Academy in Birmingham. The aims of this day were:

• To explore aspects of colorectal nursing practice for which there is currently insufficient national guidance or benchmarking;
• To work collaboratively with nurses across the country to support the development of resources to address the two most pressing aspects of practice identified.

The day started with a consideration of process, using the NICE guideline development model to shape our thinking and hearing from Wendy Osborne, ASCN (UK) Education Officer, who kindly agreed to share the process recently adopted to write the ASCN (UK) standards. This was followed by a brainstorming exercise, based around the patient pathway, to identify areas of need, with each need prioritised by all those attending and scored accordingly. The two needs achieving the highest scores were adopted and over the afternoon, two working groups addressed one topic each to create a draft scoping document and to agree an implementation plan. The two areas of need selected were:

• Development of a protocol and guidance for colorectal nurses undertaking rigid sigmoidoscopy in a clinic setting;
• Identification of models of nurse involvement in the two-week wait referral pathway.

We would be very grateful if any members could email any local policy or guidance documents relating to either topic to: gabrielle.thorpe@uea.ac.uk. We hope to provide an overview of both projects at the ACPN Symposium at the ACPGBI Annual Meeting in Birmingham.

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