The Association holds an annual Ruth Alston Memorial Lecture and sometimes its own conference in the early part of the year.  The Annual General Meeting and Good Practice Forum/Occupational  Health Update are generally held in October each year.

The AOHNP conference aims to provide good value, central location, many networking opportunities, interesting content and learning outcomes.

Ruth Alston was a passionate advocate of occupational health nursing. She frequently demonstrated this during her varied career that included working in industrial and commercial settings and teaching occupational health nursing students.

To many she is probably best known for her part in the development of the Hanasaari Model for occupational health nursing. This was one of the earliest examples of occupational health nursing in the UK mirroring the developments and moves towards an increased academic approach seen in nursing generally.

No model can ever capture the essence and humanity of Ruth. She was firm yet kind, assertive yet tolerant, warm yet business like and knowledgeable yet a life long learner.

Her tragic early death made us all poorer but richer in that we have the opportunity to remember her during the annual Ruth Alston Memorial Lecture.

One of Ruth’s last kind acts for her AOHNP(UK) colleagues was to agree that this annual lecture be held in her name. She requested only that there should somehow be a link between occupational health nursing and the business world. This has given opportunity for a wide brief and diverse topics for past speakers.

Ruth Alston Memorial Lecture - 5 March 2008
The Cameo Suite at The Coleshill Hotel had been prepared for us and guests started arriving for the drinks reception at around 6.30pm.  Although numbers were not quite as high as we had hoped, wine and conversation flowed freely between those present and at 7pm we sat at our designated places to hear the informative talk from Wendy Stimson, Occupational Health Service Manager, Constructing Better Health.  (Photo album).
 
The three-course dinner which followed was very enjoyable, although we did receive complaints about the size of the portions – too large!  

Extracts from some thank you letters received include:
“It was wonder to meet so many people with such enthusiasm for occupational health” – Bashyr Aziz, University of Wolverhampton
“Ray, Lisa and myself were well treated and thoroughly enjoyed the lecture, dinner and the excellent company” – Rob Strange, Chief Executive, IOSH
“Thank you all at AOHNP, what a welcome” – Anne Newham, new member

One problem that became apparent was the difficulty of finding accommodation in/around NEC.  Unfortunately some members who had booked to attend the RAML discovered that their hotel was actually quite a distance away from the NEC and Coleshill and the taxi fares were extremely high.  

We are therefore currently trying to source a hotel close by the NEC where we can provisionally block-book accommodation and an RAML venue for Tuesday, 25 February 2009.  We will then advertise the event on the website and in OH Today giving early booking discounts etc.  Hopefully this will give more members a better chance to attend next year.  If you would like to be advised when matters are organised please send me an email.