Health Protection Guideline A Board Health Protection Nurse Perspective

1. Health Protection Guideline A Board Health Protection Nurse Perspective Mary Quinn, Health Protection Nurse Specialist

2. Declaration of Conflict of Interest • I am the current chair of the Health Protection Guideline Group HPGG( previously HPN) • Been in post for 21/2 yrs and involved with the HPN for 5 yrs • This is my perspective of what I would think as a Health Protection Nurse should I be on a guideline working group with no previous knowledge of guidance development • The HPGG planned to have a similar learning workshop with previous chairs and members of working groups as described by Dr Nickdel with HPS staff who have been co-ordinating working groups

3. Opportunities • Be proactive at a national level • Multidisciplinary, multiprofessional working • Learning and CPD • Consider practice from a wider perspective • As practitioners understand the complexities of practice and have ‘real’ life experiences to offer • Use of up to date evidence • What constitutes as evidence • More likely to implement guidance if involved in production

4. Challenges • Time frame for guidance production • Medium to long term commitment • Reactive work can take precedence • Maintaining focus • May never have limited experience of guidance production process • May have rusty skills in evidence searching, appraisal and synthesis • Minimal available admin support • Whole guidance can seem a daunting task

5. Needs • Meetings planned in advance (face to face/virtual) • Need for expert help • in developing primary questions • Scientific, grey and other evidence from literature searching • Appraising the evidence in relation to answering the key questions • Synthesising this into guidance • Need for a chair to distribute tasks and into sizable chunks • An team to project manage and keep to tasks