On the 14th September 13 SUGAR members and City University of London staff travelled up to Nottingham to attend the 22nd International Network for Psychiatric Nursing Research (NPNR) Conference 2016.  Most of the group stayed in the Crown Plaza hotel which was beautiful and the staff were extremely friendly.  The hotel was only a stone’s throw away from the conference centre so we could walk there and back without any difficulty. Some of the group also took the chance to explore Nottingham a little in their spare time while others preferred to relax in the hotel’s sauna and swimming pool!

This year the SUGAR workhop carried on from the previous year’s Dragons Den winner (Cher Hallet) and looked at how her proposed study into Intra Muscular medication administration had been developed into a full research proposal. It was quite a tough year in terms of competing for the audience members attending as so much was going on at the same time as our workshop but the people who did attend engaged very well and were all extremely impressed with Cher’s passion surrounding this project and the input SUGAR had into helping her and the team get it off the ground.

 

Jay Hudson and Sally Barlow were also both members of the “Tweet Team” who were tweeting on behalf of the Mental Elf Service and the conference as part of a new initiative. This helped those people who could not attend the conference keep up to speed hence making it more inclusive and user friendly.

We had good feedback from people at the conference and everyone was impressed at just how active the SUGAR members were in asking questions in workshops covering a range of interesting and sometimes sensitive issues. The drawings accompanying this short blog are once again courtesy of our very own excellent artist Michael Ahern!