8 Jul 2022
The in-house nurse club, which started as get-togethers after work, mushroomed into a country-wide CPD service with hundreds of nurses signing up after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rachael Buzzel
Job Title
Cave Veterinary Specialists’ Helen Bye (left) and Bryony Gilder.
An in-house “nurse club” that was the brainchild of two Somerset-based vet nurses has turned into a national success story.
In 2018, head of nursing services Helen Bye and senior RVN Bryony Gilder set up an in-house nurse club to focus on nursing issues and opportunities for staff at Cave Veterinary Specialists near Wellington.
Four years later, the team’s after-work get-togethers have mushroomed into a nationwide online CPD service, engaging hundreds of nurses across the country – with its last session attracting more than 600 sign-ups – and publishing lectures to Cave’s website for nursing professionals to catch up after the event.
Mrs Bye said: “It all started internally with the nurses at Cave meeting in reception after hours. We would get some pizzas in and one nurse would give a short lecture. Soon, a few primary care nurses from other local vet practices started to join us.
“Nurses were able to share their expert skills in specific areas, and support the primary care nurses with CPD advice and information, and highlight specialist areas they could pursue.”
In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK began, the club was forced to take its meetings online, giving it the potential to reach veterinary nurses across the country.
Mrs Bye continued: “We also recorded videos and posted them online, and had thousands of hits, so it’s grown massively and become a real success story. We had 640 vet nurses across the country sign up for our last event, which surprised and delighted us.
“It’s so rewarding to see how our nurse club idea has gone from a local initiative to something so big with such a committed following.”
Miss Gilder added: “There are a number of reasons why I believe nurse club has been so successful. Firstly, nurse club is free. Often, CPD budgets for veterinary nurses can be restrictive, making it tricky to log the number of hours required to maintain RVN registrations.
“We also try to keep the content relevant to as many people as possible, dealing with a variety of issues and topics from nursing patients with medical, surgical and neurological conditions, to sustainability in veterinary practice, and mental health.
“Other key factors are keeping it all contained within an hour, so people can fit them in around their already busy work commitments, and recording them to be available on demand.”
Miss Gilder continued: “In the future, we hope to be able to offer both face-to-face and online events. Meeting fellow veterinary professionals and presenting to a live audience over pizza is enjoyable, and we look forward to having this opportunity again.
“The online success has been absolutely amazing, with so many people accessing our events. We would obviously like this to continue, too.”
For more information about Cave’s nurse club CPD, visit its website or its Facebook page.
