RCN West Midlands

22/05/2026

Mounting fears about a lack of jobs for student nurses who are days away from qualifying prompted a protest at RCN Congress in Liverpool this week.

The action by RCN student members was led by Joshua Parker-Walsh from the West Midlands, who chairs the College's Students Committee.

Student nurses from across the UK have come together to protest a lack of employment opportunities in the NHS.

22/05/2026

RCN Congress may have ended for another year but we're still catching up with our fantastic West Midlands speakers from the last day.

RCN West Midlands Chair and South Birmingham branch member Kevin Crimmons spoke on the debate calling for RCN Council to lobby for the inclusion of Supporting Professional Activities (SPA) time in all nursing job-plans, saying: "It's challenging in the NHS to get your professional development time, but when you widen that to primary care nurses who are working for independent employers, they really, really have to fight for any sort of development time.

"And the same is true for our fantastic colleagues working in the social care sector. Again, there's nothing mandated that means they will get that time.

So I think if this does pass, it's important that the Royal College of Nursing bring pressure to bear on the Nursing and Midwifery Council because the only way that we're going to guarantee this is if the NMC mandate that it is part of our development, as in that we actually get the time that they advise for continuous professional development as part of all of our revalidation."

21/05/2026

Speaking in the final debate of Congress, which called on RCN Council to take urgent action to address the decline in numbers of health visitors and the impact on the babies, children and young families that they serve, Angela Cartwright (RCN Birmingham West and Sandwell branch member and Chair of the RCN Midwifery Forum) said: "Decline in health visiting is not just a workforce issue, it's an acute public health crisis.

"With rising caseloads, especially in areas of high deprivation, health visitors are forced to prioritise child protection rather than their public health role. Our nursing colleagues did not train to be social workers; they want to be health visitors.

"Tragically, we're starting to see an increase in infant mortality. I live in the West Midlands - in my area, out of every 1000 children born, six of them don't live to celebrate their first birthday. That's double the national average, and health visitors could really combat that.

"Without prevention focusing on the sharp end, it just creates an escalating cycle of crisis. Health visitors and other professionals spend time pulling drowning families out of the river, rather than working upstream to prevent them falling in in the first place."

21/05/2026

West Midlands delegate and student nurse Rebecca Griffiths addressed this morning's debate at RCN Congress in Liverpool on the role that nursing has in eye donation in end-of-life care planning.

Rebecca said that until she saw the item on the Congress agenda she had been unaware that eye donation has a different set of criteria to other types of organ donation.

She added: "It feels like there's a massive gap in education for the general public as well as for nurses."

21/05/2026

West Midlands member Prof Rod Thompson introduced this morning's debate at RCN Congress calling for action to improve the take-up of physical health care checks for people with learning disabilities and serious mental illnesses.

Proposing the resolution on behalf of the RCN's Public Health Forum, Rod said: "Too often, clinical overshadowing means that serious physical conditions are missed."

20/05/2026

This afternoon Jessica Pearshouse, a student nurse with our South Birmingham branch, contributed to the RCN Congress discussion on what accessible and affordable travel means for the nursing workforce.

Jessica spoke about the challenges and cost of staff parking at hospitals, especially as a student not getting paid for their placement, saying: ‘We need to cheapen these parking costs. We need to lobby government to cap the prices of the car parks, or get more car parks for the staff.”

20/05/2026

Three delegates from the West Midlands addressed the RCN Congress 2026 debate this afternoon on access to specialist pain services and the role of registered nurses in caring for people in pain.

Claire Stickels highlighted the inequality in accessing services faced by people with a learning disability and also told a sobering story about her own daughter being disbelieved by health professionals when she developed a painful health condition.

Oluwagbenga Olowookere highlighted the profound impact on patients of fragile and under-resourced services, adding: "Waiting times are excessively long, leaving many older adults to endure or manage pain or manage discomfort and distress for prolonged periods."

Tapiwa Malcolm said people in rural areas, deprived communities and with a non-cancer diagnosis often struggled to access support for pain symptom management. She added: "Pain management should not depend on postcode or diagnosis."

20/05/2026

Two delegates from the West Midlands spoke in support of this morning's RCN Congress 2026 resolution calling for improvements in acute mental health crisis services for children and young people.

Hana Pai explained the frustrating reality of a typical working day - a looked-after young person, for example, waiting on a ward for days, then being declared fit for discharge, only to have to stay on the ward for even longer due to the breakdown of a foster home placement.

Cheryl Nyabezi highlighted the disproportionately worse experience of people from a global majority background, adding: "These patterns don't begin in adulthood, they begin in childhood, shaping the trajectory of crisis-led care, repeated detentions, poorer outcomes and longer inpatient stays."

20/05/2026

Our Black Country branch member Abdul-Mumin Maltima Alhassan told RCN Congress 2026 in Liverpool this morning that external inquiries into serious health care failings are important for more than their findings and recommendations for change and improvement.

He said: "These inquiries lead to the truth - the truth of the matters that underpin these incidents that we so hate. The truth, I believe, is just as important as the actions that we need to put in place to address these problems."

19/05/2026

Our West Midlands delegate Chris Barber described himself as proudly autistic in addressing RCN Congress 2026 in Liverpool this afternoon in the debate about the dangers of misinformation in health care.

Chris said: "Misinformation leads to discrimination, and discrimination leads to hate crime."