Louise Northway
Clinical Nurse Lead, Wendover Heights Veterinary Centre, Buckinghamshire, UK
Lou qualified as a Veterinary Nurse in 2009. Since then she has worked in various first opinion practices and a referral hospital in the UK. Her main interests are anaesthesia, analgesia, emergency and critical care nursing, and quality improvement.
In 2019 Louise was awarded the RCVS inspiration award for her ongoing ability to inspire and enthuse others in practice and further afield. In addition, she became an RCVS knowledge champion for the quality improvement procedures she undertakes in practice.
Louise is currently Clinical Nurse Lead at her practice and is responsible reviewing clinical standards, implementing quality improvement practices and training the team in her areas of interest.
Alongside working full time in practice, Louise is a British Veterinary Nursing Association (BVNA) council member and a part of the VN Futures Career progression working group which she is very proud of.
Louise has a social media blog ‘Lou The Vet Nurse’ with over 12.5K followers. Through this platform she shares CPD, hints and tips and blogs about her life as a Registered Veterinary Nurse in the UK.
Louise is keen to encourage nurses to view their career as one massive opportunity, to encourage lifelong learning, to find their niche and to know their self-worth.
Louise is truly passionate and proud of the Veterinary Nursing profession and hopes to help empower other nurses to enjoy their career as much as she does hers.
Louise Northway is speaking at the following sessions
Planning for anaesthesia as a team to improve patient outcomes: Thinking about what might go wrong & what we can do to make it go right!
Improving patient safety and overall experience is a team effort. This lecture will look at the planning and preparation involved for anaesthesia, even before the patient arrives.
We will look potential complications that may be encountered and how we can reduce the risk; together…. or even stop them happening in the first place!
Finding & maintaining your RVN mojo
Being a Veterinary Nurse has big highs and big lows. You may feel slightly disillusioned … or not really know where your career is taking you. This lecture will help give you some positive inspiration for making the most of your career and finding your niche. We will finish off touching on ways in which you can help encourage a collaborative approach between your whole team to improve motivation.
Improving clinical standards in practice - How to become a quality improvement ambassador
This lecture will look at how you and your team can all take charge in improving clinical standards in practice. Every member of the veterinary team has a responsibility to do their job to the best of their ability. We will look at different areas of the practice focussing on key areas which we can improve. But how can we improve an area if we don’t know how we are doing? This lecture will cover just that!
How many patients are coming back from theatre hypothermic? How many appointments are being missed? How many drug prescriptions are being filled incorrectly? How many patients are coming back with post-operative wound complications? Often it isn’t until you stop, audit and reflect on how you and your team are doing do you see that there is often a lot work to be done!
This lecture will be a whistle-stop tour of quality improvement in practice and will hopefully inspire you to stand tall and lead the way to improving clinical standards in practice.