In the middle of April the 17th meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Urology Nurse Group, ESPUN, was taken place in Bruges, Belgium. Paediatric nurses and paediatric urotherapists met in Bruges to share their experiences and knowledge. The Congress was held at the old hospital Oud Sint-Jan located in the middle of the city centre.

The philosophy and aims of the ESPUN are to share knowledge and experiences between nurses and other paramedical staff in paediatric urology and continence, increase the quality of caring for children suffering from these problems as well as support nurses and urotherapists in their professions and research. The nurse group has now 82 members. The President of the group Ulla-Britt Jansson from Sweden performed sterling work in the organization of this year’s nurses’ congress and all her and the other board members work was reflected in the quality of, efficient running and consistent high standards of the days.

The objectives of the ESPUN are also to develop and maintain an international networking group in paediatric urology nursing. Further to raise the profile of the group by promoting educational activities such as annual conference with paper presented by members and the workshops.

English is the official language of the ESPUN but not the first language of all members. All nurses were therefore invited to attend a language course, sponsored by Astra Tech and ESPU, The course had 26 participants and the tutor was Mrs Ingrid Piron. The course gave the nurses opportunity to get to know each other and to practice their language knowledge.

The ESPUN scientific meeting had 3 sessions; Bladder exstrophy Incontinence with a panel discussion “Urotherapy – what have we learned?” and Sharing good clinical practice. We continued the Research school. Thirteen abstracts were presented. Sue Keeble (UK), Florens Sikkel (NL) together with ESPUN board members moderated the sessions. Moderator of the panel discussion was dr.Piete Hoebeke (Belgium) and in the the panel were Christine Rhodes (UK), Marianne Vijverberg (NL) and Anna-Lena Hellström (Swe).

This year we had 2 prizes for the nurse’s sessions. Maaike Schaijk (NL) received the prize for best research paper “Urinary incontinence in girls and female adolescents with cystic fibrosis” and Nathalie Forth (France) for the best paper about clinical practice “Supporting patients with bladder exstrophy and their family; Presenting of two tools”.

Monika Doroszkiewicz
Secretary ESPUN