An interview with Hannah Spreadborough, a pediatric nurse with more than 30 years of experience. She is also course facilitator on the “Freedom to Nurse” short course here at Emerson College. The course targets nurses, midwives, and even doctors, addressing the multifaceted crisis in nursing, including identity, delivery, recruitment, and retention. The 48-hour program combines structured teaching, experiential learning, and practical self-care, and aims to support nurses’ well-being and align them with their original intentions.

Hannah: My name is Hannah Spreadborough. I’m a paediatric nurse living and working in the North East of Scotland. I work for the NHS on a general paediatric unit but one that has quite a lot of Emergency Department involvement.

Emerson: So it sounds like it’s quite busy, quite stressful, quite demanding?

Hannah: Yes, that’s right, yeah, never a dull moment.

Emerson: And you’re one of the course facilitators on the Freedom to Nurse short course here at Emerson.  Can I ask what inspired you to develop this course?

Hannah: Yes, absolutely. This course has been many years in coming to birth. There’s been a lot of research into the fundamentals of medicine, the fundamentals of nursing, what it is, what it isn’t.  It’s also been very much a responding to requests from nurses who are already working within a holistic framework of nursing, some of them with many, many years’ experience, and they approached me and said: “Hannah, we really feel like we need to learn more about the soul disposition, the nature of what it is to be a nurse and what it is to nurse our patients.”.

It was a mixture of research, dialog, conversation, listening to what might be needed and listening to these direct requests for exactly this type of course that we began last November at Emerson College.

Emerson:  To summarise, if I understand correctly, you’re a nurse, and this course is designed specifically for nurses.

Hannah: It is, it’s it and yes, I am a nurse myself, for almost 37 years now, so quite, quite a long time.  And the course is for nurses, I would say it’s for anybody from final year student nurses, because they need to have had enough direct experience of how it is to be a nurse all the way through to people who maybe have recently retired, but they have a passion for nursing, and they might feel like they still have something to contribute to the profession of nursing, and what it’s possible for it to become in the present and looking towards the future? I wouldn’t exclude midwives. I think, you know, midwives are a very autonomous, independent practice within, ‘m not going to say nursing, because that will offend midwives, but within the healthcare setting.  So, I would absolutely say it would also be for them,

Emerson: And I guess midwives would be subject to the same sorts of challenges and experiences that nurses would?

Hannah: That’s absolutely right. They indeed are. And I have also had some interest from some doctors who wish to know more about nursing, and I suppose that might come as a surprise to some people, but you know, as very close colleagues and very close collaborators, one might assume that doctors really know a lot about what it is to nurse, but actually that is not always the case.  If there are doctors who wish to know more about nursing, then they are also welcome to apply.

Emerson: And am I right in thinking that you’ve got, you’ve got at least one doctor as part of the faculty?

Hannah: Yes, we’ve got Dr Michael Evans, and he’s just retired, actually, as a GP, but he also an extensive career in medicine, and is responsible for other courses held at Emerson for medicine and allied health care professions.

Emerson: Can you tell me a little bit about the course itself?  What sorts of material will you cover if someone was coming for the weekend? What can they expect?

Hannah:  The course runs over about 48 hours, of course.  It’s quite short, but what we found in November is that we were able to pack a lot of material into that short time.  Attendess can expect to find possibly quite a different educational environment to the one that they’ve been used to before. This course really recognises that the people who attend are already qualified nurses, so they bring with them a whole wealth of their own experience, their own thoughts, their own inspiration, their own decision to enter the vocation of nursing, so that that means that there’s a lot of collaborative process throughout the weekend. There’s a lot of conversation; there’s a lot of dialogue. We do very carefully consider what we feel important for nurses – to be able to really step into their own agency and their vocation.

There is some more structured teaching. There’s a lot of experiential process. There’s time spent inside the classroom, but also out in the beautiful surrounds of Emerson College, working with the nature there. There’s some practical self-care and well-being applications that nurses can use to support themselves, not to really get burnt out and exhausted.  These can then be practiced on family members, and eventually there will be more practical teaching of how that can be applied in the workplace, to their patients, to their clients.

Emerson:  To summarise the structure of the weekend, it sounds like there’s some teaching, there’s some experiential learning. There’s some time spent in nature. There’s an opportunity for nurses both to nurture themselves as well as learn some tools to support themselves on the job delivering nursing as well as caring for patients.  And collaborative dialog, and conversation is also a significant part of the weekend.

Hannah:  Yes that’s right, absolutely. What I could also say is that this course is borne out of a recognition that worldwide, in fact, nursing is in crisis, and that crisis is multifaceted.

It’s a crisis of identity.

“What does it mean to be a nurse today?”.  That’s fundamentally altered in the time I’ve been nursing, and there’s much more of an interweaving of what was traditionally actually a doctor’s role, a young doctor’s role. So, there’s a crisis of identity, there’s a crisis of ability to deliver nursing in a way that people originally intended when they chose this vocation. And there’s a crisis in recruitment and retention. Many young nurses now, even those who’ve just qualified, express the feeling that this is not something that they’re going to be able to do for very long. That, in itself, is a huge, huge crisis, it’s deeply concerning. And so, in some respects, the course addresses or serves to address some of those questions. It helps to support and nurture nurses in practicing and performing their role.  It enables them to take care of their own well-being, so that they are well enough to nurse others, and it really helps them to come back into alignment with their original intention to nurse and gives them agency there, because if we as nurses do not decide the future of what nursing is, then it will be decided for us.

I would also say it’s very important to recognise in this, and it is addressed in the course, a patient calls upon a nurse to receive nursing, there’s a real, heartfelt cry to be nursed in a way that enables them to participate in their own restoration of health and healing.

Emerson:  Thankfully, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a hospital or a medical facility where there are nurses, but I imagine nurses are pulled from pillar to post because of a shortage of resources, a shortage of staff, and ultimately that impacts on a patient’s well-being, a patient’s ability to recover.

Hannah: Absolutely, yes, it does. You know, we have a system that, at the moment, is really making those whose task it is to restore health in others sick themselves.  Which is not a good position to be in, not at all.

Emerson: And I’m right in thinking that the weekend is eligible for continued professional development, CPD hours as well?  Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Hannah: Yes, the three facilitators of the course, myself, John and Michael, We recognised that that was something which we really wanted to be part of this course; that for nurses who are going to be taking time off from work to do this that actually they can use this course as part of their revalidation process, which all nurses will know happens every three years within the UK.  We have to do a certain number of practice hours, a certain number of hours in continued professional development, so they will be issued with a certificate that they can utilise as part of that process.

Emerson: Finally, where can prospective attendees find more information or get in touch to find out more?

Hannah:  They can go on the Emerson College website, which I believe if they go to www.emerson.org.uk/nurse that will take them to direct information about this course in particular.  Or they can email the registrar.

If there is a need and a wish for more specific or direct questions in order for people to ascertain whether this might be something for them, then I’m absolutely happy for them to get in touch with me via Emerson.

Emerson:  Do you want to just remind us of the dates?

Hannah: Of course, it’s June the seventh to the ninth.

The next Freedom to Nurse short course is scheduled for June 7-9, more information and booking can be found here.