Ann annual report 2010

Contents

President's report ………………………………………………………. 3
Secretary's Report ……………………………………………………… 5
Treasurer's report ………………………………………….…………… 6
Country representative's report ………………………………………… 8
Newsletter committee report …………………………………………… 9
Conference committee report …………………………………………. 10
ANN October 2010
PRESIDENT'S REPORT
Hello to the new members that may have joined in the last few months, and to the stalwart members who have been with ANN for a number of years. This report marks the end of my term as President of ANN. As I look back over the past two years, and the variety of things I have undertaken or been involved in as President, I feel proud and privileged to have been given the opportunity to serve the members of our wonderful specialty, caring for newborns and their families. Our membership is steady at more than 300, and with the move to national registration, I am positive that membership numbers will climb further, as neonatal nurses realise the benefits of being an active member of their professional group. If you have friends in the specialty who are not yet members, can I encourage you to discuss the benefits of membership and to sign them up? The last two years have seen many developments that should strengthen the position of ANN and ACNN, including the completion and publishing of the latest strategic plan, the move to an electronic journal, the development of an up-to-date 21st century website that has the capacity for online registration for conferences, to eventually pay membership renewals, and have increasing links available. The proposal to separate our yearly conference from PSANZ should also see us developing and promoting a stronger, individual identity for ourselves as neonatal nurses. ANN continues to be represented on many committees connected to the specialty with Sandie Bredemeyer on the NSW Health Maternal and Perinatal Committee, and Michelle Simmons on the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) for NSW, Shelley Reid on the Coalition of National Nursing Organisations (CoNNO) and Robyn Richards on the NSW Department of Health committee to update the clinical practice guideline for the "Recognition of the sick child in emergency". I also wish to thank the talented team of Shelley Reid, Sandie Bredemeyer, Cathy van den Berg, Trevor Cresp, Terri Martin, and Nathalia Miara who undertook the development of the ACNN Palliative Care Guidelines which are now on the website for everyone to access. We also need to thank Dr Vicki Kain (University of Queensland) Sandra Coombs, Maria Heaton (Sydney Children's Hospital) Kylie Pussell (consumer representative, Miracle Babies Foundation), and Sue Wooderson (John Hunter Children's Hospital) who were the external reviewers for this document. The committees that form an integral part of ANN have functioned extremely well over the past two years. The Education Committee has worked tirelessly to run two dinner seminars and one country seminar per year with great success. We have also added a general meeting to these dinner seminars to meet our constitutional requirements of having two general meetings per year. These events are patronised very well, to the extent that the last dinner seminar was fully subscribed early, with extra attendants unable to get seats. Hopefully this desire to attend will continue, and we will have to look for a bigger venue to take the added numbers. The Newsletter Committee continues to provide a high quality read to supplement the journal editions. On that note can members please ensure their postal details are correct so that mail-outs are not missed, and to ensure you receive the entire benefits afforded as part of your membership. The Conference Committee has also performed extremely well. With the steady increase of neonatal conferences, seminars and workshops being delivered by a variety of providers we have made the decision to move to a one-day conference, to maintain our capacity for delivering a high quality conference. Our annual conference continues to deliver a program of great quality, being well supported by trade exhibitors, allowing costs to be kept relatively low. We welcome delegates from all over Australia and New Zealand. I highly commend all members of these committees for their hard work and commitment to the objectives of ANN. I wish to personally thank everyone involved in the above committees, for your tireless commitment and hard work over the past two years, in maintaining a strong presence in neonatal care, education and professional development across the state. It has been an absolute pleasure working with such a talented group. Special thanks to Shelley Reid for supporting me through the presidency of ANN. The Executive Committee has worked extremely well together, completing the strategic plan, and continuing to look at innovative ways of promoting ANN to its members and have had fun along the way. ANN continues to provide a prize to the top students in the Neonatal Intensive Care and Special Care Courses at The College of Nursing, the recipients of which will be announced at the annual conference. Also we want to add our gratitude to the Miracle Babies Foundation for their involvement and ongoing support for ANN and their promised continued commitment to support babies, families and staff in NICU. Just to remind members that applications are now open for the Parker Health Scholarship for 2011, for registered nurses and midwives currently working in a neonatal intensive care or a special care nursery who are either early career neonatal nurses or early career researchers in neonatal nursing. Applications close 12 November 2010. Also the 6th Annual ACNN Conference is on 8 April 2011, in Hobart, Tasmania, so please start thinking about how you can share your knowledge and clinical practice with your peers from other neonatal units across Australia and beyond. In closing I want to say again, that the past two years has been a memorable time for me. I have learnt heaps, had some great experiences as well as a few frustrations (not enough time in the day to do some of the things I wanted to achieve) but hopefully can still do in the past president role. I feel this knowledge has added to my understanding of the responsibility we carry as neonatal nurses, in the Neonatal CNC position and also in my personal growth. Thanks again for the opportunity to serve the membership of ANN. Robyn Richards
SECRETARY'S REPORT
Membership
Total membership continues to gradually increase. There were 318 financial members as at 30 June 2010 however by 30 September 2010 only 60% had renewed. Correspondence
Letter from NSW Health Statewide Services agreeing to sponsor the country Annual report from The College of Nursing. Notification from the NSW Office of Fair Trading regarding the enactment of the new NSW Associations Incorporation Act 2009 on 1 July 2010. Scholarships
One application for the Jessie Everson-Checkley Education Grant was received and was awarded to Sarah Adams for attendance at the PSANZ Scientific Congress in Wellington, New Zealand. This scholarship continues to be under-utilised. Shelley Reid
ANN Executive Committee for 2009 - 2010
TREASURER'S REPORT
Association of Neonatal Nurses of NSW Inc.
Financial Report Summary
CURRENT ASSETS
TOTAL CURRENT ASSETS
NON-CURRENT ASSETS
TOTAL NON-CURRENT ASSETS
TOTAL ASSETS
LIABILITIES
CURRENT LIABILITIES
TOTAL CURRENT LIABILITIES
TOTAL LIABILITIES
NET ASSETS
TOTAL EQUITY
Association of Neonatal Nurses of NSW Inc.
INCOME AND EXPENDITURE STATEMENT
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 JUNE 2010
OTHER REVENUE
EXPENDITURE
(Loss) Profit for the year
Retained earnings at the beginning of the financial Retained earnings at the end of the financial
COUNTRY REPRESENTATIVE'S REPORT
As this was my first year as country representative (and only my second year as a financial member where the country representative position was not filled) of ANN I was a little unsure of my responsibilities/duties. I feel that I have not achieved a great deal professionally but personally I have experienced pregnancy firsthand (including the fear of delivering a premature baby in country NSW and being transferred out to a city NICU) labour and finally the joy, along with the trials and tribulations of being a first time mum! Having been on maternity leave for the past few months I would like to talk about an exciting prospect for the health region that I work in. Prior to going on maternity leave I was the co-coordinator of the Special Care Nursery where I work, being one of the bigger SCNs in NSW (certainly the biggest in western NSW). We deliver many babies prior to term and are able to care for them from delivery when approximately 34 weeks gestation or greater, until they are ready to go home. Any babies of a lower gestation then this or needing ongoing respiratory support (i.e. greater than 6 hours of 60% or more head box oxygen, CPAP, or ventilation +/- surfactant) must be retrieved by NETS to a city NICU. As I understand it the health department deems each nursery to be able to care for babies from a certain gestation and thus levels are allocated to nurseries throughout NSW. There has been an increase in demand on level 5 and 6 NICUs in city hospitals and an increased demand for NETS transfers due to the better survival of premature babies at lower gestations. This increased demand on specialist transport and NICU beds in the city hospitals has recently lead to talks around increasing the services of the larger base hospital SCNs so babies of lower gestational age can remain in country regions and also be transferred back from NICUs once stabilized, possibly from 32 week corrected gestation. So what does this mean? Well it would mean mothers and babies could remain near their homes, families and friends. It would mean increased services in country areas, decreasing pressure on both NETS and territory NICUs. However the extra services would mean increased funding for the purchase of new equipment to care for these babies with higher care acuity, extra staff and training for staff, and in some places refurbishments to accommodate the increase in SCN patient numbers. There is a long way to go, but what an exciting time lies ahead for country SCNs and their staff. We would hope better partnerships could be formed with our city NICUs to assist with knowledge, education, staff training and possibly even secondments to country areas. Secondments already exist for midwives to country areas for periods from 8 weeks and more; it would be great to be able to do the same for our neonatal nurses. So keep an eye out for developments and if anyone wanted a short or longer "tree change" don't hesitate to contact me as I would be very happy to assist anyone to arrange a secondment to the country. Sally Jenkins
NEWSLETTER COMMITTEE
Annual Report 2009 - 2010
Members
Meetings
attended
Shelley Reid, editor News from ANN Jan Polverino, chairperson ANN Newsletter Committee Michelle Simmons, editor News from ANN Breastfeeding Column Terms of reference (revised 1998)
• To collate material for publication every three months (four newsletters per year). • To solicit appropriate articles from members and others with an interest in • To provide support and encouragement to contributors. • To liaise with printing and distribution sponsor (Kimberly-Clark). • To meet as a committee 4-6 weeks prior to publication. • To submit an annual report to the ANN executive for presentation at the AGM. Activity for 2009-2010
• The committee consisted of four members with Michelle Simmons as the new editor News from ANN Breastfeeding Column. There was almost full attendance at scheduled meetings in the past 12 months. Shelley continued to represent the Newsletter Committee on the ANN Executive. • Four editions of the newsletter have been produced. Copies were to the College of Nursing library, and the National Library of Australia. • The NSW Neonatal Clinical Nurse Consultants Network has continued to contribute the CNC column which informs and educates ANN members in each newsletter. • The regular column on breastfeeding issues has continued to interest members. • Other contributions have included some conference and seminar reports, and • Kimberly-Clark (Huggies) continues to generously print and distribute the newsletter. This ongoing and generous support is much appreciated. • Shelley continues to format and edit the newsletter each edition. To everybody who has contributed to the newsletter in any way, thank you. • For anyone interested in joining the newsletter committee, we meet every three months at a central location to discuss ideas and divide responsibilities for the next and upcoming issues (no experience necessary). Shelley Reid for Jan Polverino
CONFERENCE COMMITTEE
Members: Robyn Richards, Shelley Reid, Lyndy Dixon, Kylie Kearns, Anna Gilbert.
Report and delegates' evaluation for annual conference 23- 24 October 2009
A total of 96 delegates attended the conference, with 40 on Friday only, 5 on Saturday only and 56 attending both days. From these 53 (55.2%) evaluation forms were received: 21 (39.6%) for Friday only, 1(1.9%) for Saturday only and 31 (58.5%) for both days. Each question had ≥58% responses. The delegates indicated the sources for finding out about the conference. Thus 32 (60.4%) had received mail from ANN, 11 (20.8%) had seen a poster/flyer at work, 2 (3.8%) accessed the ACNN website and 6 (11.3%) had heard by word of mouth. The results are presented below as proportions of rating. Overall rating of the
conference was very positive. The venue, location, and catering rated well. Many
delegates (53%) rated the whole program at 4, and the other 47% at 3 out of 4. The
most popular presenters were Professor Jane Pillow (Keynote Speaker), Dr Jenny
Bowen, Andrea Hendry and Michelle Bampfield. All the other invited speakers rated
well. The most complaints were about audiovisual aspects, lack of seats for lunch or
the air conditioning. Again, there was some restriction of screen view for those at the
back, a recurring problem. There were also some comments about the restricted space
for the trade display.
Overall rating of conference:
Rating by percentage
Rating criteria
1 (lowest) 2 3 4 (highest)
Venue

Program
Trade display
Best features of the 2009 conference
Listed in descending order of frequency

Jane Pillow (7)
Jenny Bowen (6)
Networking (6)
Andrea Hendry (5)
Venue location (3)
Leanne Ehrlich (3)
Donna Waters (2)
Michelle Bampfield (2)
Kim Suttor (2)
Belinda Harris (2)
Presentations from Canberra group (2)
Interesting topics (2)
Variety of topics
Margaret Broom
Trade opportunities
Posters
Mary Lou Morritt
Topic suggestions for future conferences
Grouped in similar categories

Nursing research
Qualitative research
Cochrane collaboration
WOMBAT
Follow up on research on parent-nurse relationships
Neonatal education
Overview of neonatal nursing in NSW
Teamwork
Clinical practice issues
Follow up from Canberra Hospital*
Role of NETS*
Breastfeeding the preterm infant
More on nurturing neurodevelopment*
More clinical conditions
Surgical conditions*
Case studies*
Pharmacology of new medications e.g. sildenafil, ibuprofen
Probiotics
HIE and cooling*
HFO
Neonatal anaesthesia
Phototherapy management
Social issues
Stress, trauma*
* More than one request

Shelley Reid
For the Conference Committee, 19 November 2009

Source: http://www.acnn.org.au/Portals/0/ANN%20Annual%20Report%202010.pdf