Our work

• Providing professional representation at a strategic level.
• Ensuring that the voice of nursing is heard in all relevant professional forums.
• Working with other organisations to develop policy and guidance.
• Organising study events to share best practice.
• Providing an opportunity to network with other critical care and flight nurses.

• Critical care and flight Forum Annual Report 2022

We work closely with Suman Shrestha who is the Professional Lead for Acute, Emergency and Critical Care at the RCN. He has a busy role to play coordinating the ambitions of the forum with the administration and wider strategy of the RCN. Suman also provides a link between the CCFN forum and several critical care nursing associations and he keeps us up to date with their projects and priorities which offers the opportunity for collaborative working.

Our priority within the forum is to reach out to members and listen to their needs so we may ensure that our events and projects are as relevant and useful as possible.

Critical Care and Flight Nursing Steering Committee

RCN position on self-isolation of in-flight nursing crews

The UK Government continues to require UK aeromedical escorts to mandatorily quarantine if they return from a non-travel corridor country. This has a direct impact on all of us in the assistance industry, as well as on our clients and aeromedical escorts, and most importantly our patients.

It is positive to see that the RCN has published a position statement on quarantine requirements and is advocating that aeromedical escorts be exempted from this, which will also support our patients being expedited home. This position statement has required much collaboration between senior medical and nursing figures within the UK medical assistance fraternity and to work with the RCN to provide this statement. This cross-company collaboration will continue as we all strive to push for change with HM Government, with our mutual goal being to free escorts from the quarantine requirements and to allow assistance companies to help support and move their patients more effectively.

• Production of a suite of podcasts discussing the impact of COVID-19 on repatriation work
• Production of webinars providing guidance on professional indemnity for flight nurses, and medical escort safety
• A selection of blogs from forum members
• Provided career advice for prospective flight nurses
• The ever popular RCN flight nursing study day was held in October 2020

The RCN and its forums are invited to participate in many cross working and multidisciplinary workstreams. Below are a selection of some of the activities that members of the Critical Care and Flight Nursing Forum are involved in on your behalf.

• Critical Care Leadership Forum. This forum is hosted by the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine and all the UK organisations related to critical care are members. We meet every three months to share and discuss matters related to critical care. Get it Right First Time (GIRFT) for critical care was one of the projects that was discussed and reviewed at this forum.
• UK Critical Care Nursing Alliance (UKCCNA). This is the alliance of all critical care nursing organisations in the UK. The aim is to work collaboratively on matters related to critical care nursing. The UKCCNA website contains a wealth of guidance, news and position statements.
• National Emergency Critical Care Committee. Hosted by the Intensive Care Society, the aim is to work collaboratively with all critical care organisations on matters related to critical care.
• NHS England Acute Deterioration Board. Its purpose is to ensure alignment between programmes of work being carried out by various national and regional healthcare organisations to improve the prevention, identification and rapid action in response to acute physical deterioration.