Networking for education

Working as a clinician in primary care is a challenging and demanding role and primary care nurses often comment on feelings of professional isolation. Keeping specialist knowledge up-to-date, when juggling many other aspects of life, can be difficult.

While attending educational meetings arranged by pharmaceutical companies can be a way to overcome this, often they do not reflect the special dilemmas encountered in the primary care environment.

This article reveals how, in 2009, a group of primary care nurses in Suffolk with a specialist interest in respiratory disease, felt the need to address feelings of isolation and decided to create a support and educational network for local nurses. They therefore decided to set up a local nurse respiratory group, to be known as Suffolk Respiratory Group.