Resources

Managing patients with long-term conditions is a priority for the NHS because of the significant costs associated with their care (Eaton et al, 2015). A central goal is to prevent avoidable hospital admissions (NHS England, 2019), a focus echoed in the NHS 10-Year Health Plan for England (UK Government, 2025).

Access to expert clinical support for people affected by dementia across the spectrum of remote and rural to urban settings is not equitably distributed. This study explored an alternative nurse-led approach to this problem used in the Shetland Islands, to the north of the Scottish mainland. A purposive review of the literature set the scene and informed the objectives more fully, while giving shape to the research questions and preparing ground for data collection.

Catheters are a device that is inserted into the bladder through the urethra, which are made out of silicone or latex (Al-Qahtani et al, 2019). They have a range of functions, including draining urine from the bladder, measuring bladder capacity and residual volume, instilling medication, and managing various bladder conditions (Savage, 2014). Catheters can also be used in medical emergencies, e.g. acute urinary retention (Bhatt et al, 2019).

In an ever changing healthcare landscape, community nursing is shaped by social determinants of health, varying levels of service provision, and the realities of people's everyday lives (McBride et al, 2024). As a result, now more than ever before, community nurses frequently encounter situations where individuals face barriers to accessing care, understanding their options, or exercising their rights (McCullogh et al, 2025).

As we head into summer, this issue of the JCN will keep you busy. It is packed with informative articles, which aim to both support and prompt you to question your practice and make changes where necessary to enhance patient care. Our ‘Community matters’ piece discusses the increased life expectancy of our population and, due to this, the likelihood of more people living with long-term conditions. It explores the effect that this is currently having on the NHS and possible solutions, focusing on the community nurse’s role and how our holistic approach and knowledge of available local services can improve patient care. It also looks at our own health and the importance of making time to care for ourselves, which is essential if we are to stay well and ultimately enjoy our retirement.

First, let’s celebrate the good news. Medical advances and healthier lifestyles mean that many of us will live to a ripe old age, easily outstripping the life expectancy of previous generations many of whom expected to retire at 60 and have ten or 15 good years in the sun before a sudden heart attack or stroke brought down the curtains.

However, as always with healthcare, there is always a cloud to darken any silver lining, and this one comes in the form of what is euphemistically termed ‘healthy life expectancy’. In simple terms this means that while it is definitely good news that many of us are living longer, the downside is that we are also more likely to develop any number of long-term conditions – heart disease, cancers, dementias, depression and respiratory conditions – which mean that our ‘golden years’ may not be as trouble free as we had hoped

It is no secret that lung health is in crisis in this country. While there has been a dedicated focus on improving cardiovascular and cancer care, respiratory has lagged, and it is the three million people living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in the UK (Whittaker et al, 2025) who are bearing the brunt of this as they struggle to get a diagnosis and optimum care.

Venous leg ulceration (VLU) remains one of the most common chronic wounds managed in community nursing (Guest, 2020), yet outcomes across the UK continue to vary dramatically. Despite decades of evidence confirming that compression therapy is the cornerstone of treatment, healing rates remain unacceptably poor in many areas (Guest et al, 2018). At the centre of this problem sits a test that was originally designed to support vascular assessment but which in practice has become something far more powerful: the ankle brachial pressure index (ABPI).