Alex Munro is a registered nurse with a background in unscheduled care as a nurse practitioner. He is the co-founder and clinical director of Hallam Medical, the primary care recruitment specialist.
It’s been a great summer for many reasons — lovely weather and fun holidays along with sporting triumphs in the worlds of athletics, cricket and tennis. And England and Wales are the proud hosts of the Rugby World Cup with expectations high for the home nations (let’s not mention England!). However, for me personally this summer took a rather dark turn when I became ill and needed hospital treatment.
Katy Beckford, committee member for the Association of Respiratory Nurse Specialists (ARNS) and a British Lung Foundation (BLF) professional.
To help provide nurses and our patients with the extra support they need, the Association of Respiratory Nurse Specialists (ARNS) and the British Lung Foundation (BLF) have teamed up to develop a new, comprehensive chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) selfmanagement pack. The pack includes a self-management plan and exercise handbook.
Jane Durston, operations manager, British Lymphology Society.
In November, 1985 the British Lymphology Interest Group (BLIG) was formed in Oxford by professionals in the field who identified that this area of medicine was being neglected.
Liz Felton, chief executive, Together for Mental Wellbeing.
Together for Mental Wellbeing is a national mental health charity. It was formed in 1879 and we now run over 70 services across England, supporting more than 4,000 people a month on their journey towards leading independent fulfilling lives. We provide accommodation based support, including some services with clinical input, criminal justice services, advocacy services, and support in the community.
Michelle Falconer, screening and immunisation coordinator, Commissioning Directorate, NHS England.
Vaccines save lives — but the cost procured by the Government is over £300 million a year. Last calendar year, vaccines wasted through incidents in primary care had a value at list price of £3.7 million. This figure represents vaccines that were disposed as a result of both avoidable and nonavoidable incidents, including failureto store them properly. This does not include any flu vaccine wastage (other than vaccines from the children’s programme), or any other centrally procured vaccine which Public Health England (PHE) supply and do not collect data on (e.g. rabies vaccine) (personal communication with Chris Lucas, vaccine supply team, PHE).
With record-keeping featuring as prominently as ever in the new NMC Code of Conduct, Amanda Andrews and Bernie St Aubyn examine the importance of keeping your notes up to date, not only to protect your patients, but also to stay on the right side of the law... While keeping good records is an essential professional and legal requirement of being a nurse, we all know that in reality it is a job that many of us — at one time or another — have put off for later. Good records promote continuity of care through clear communication; demonstrate the quality of care delivered; and provide the evidence necessary for any legal proceedings. Conversely, poor records have a negative impact on care delivery and clinical decision-making (Inan and Dinc, 2013).
Community placements may be a great way to learn what goes on outside the hospital. But what are they actually like for students? Jason Beckford-Ball spoke to one adult nursing student, Elisa Mais, about her experience of life in the community...
In the not-too-distant past nursing students regarded a community placement as a chance to spend some time away from the hectic pace of the wards — the hours were 9–5 and you got to drive around in the community nurse’s car. How times have changed.
Thursday November 19, 2015 is this year’s STOP Pressure Ulcer Day. This will be the fourth year in a row that people across Europe have worked to increase the awareness of pressure ulcer prevention and treatment among health professionals, policymakers and the public. Each year the range and volume of activities has increased and 2015 promises to be the biggest STOP Pressure Ulcer Day yet.
In each issue of JCN we ask clinical experts to take a look at a therapy area and examine some everyday problems that community nurses may experience. Here, we look at how best to prepare the wound bed for healing...
How can desloughing a wound aid the patient experience?
Depending on the patient’s presenting factors, managing complex or ‘hard-to-heal’ wounds can be a significant challenge for the community nurse. Increased longevity, while a positive also means that people are surviving medical and surgical procedures which were life-threatening in the past, with a 20% reduction in avoidable deaths. The delivery of complex community wound care is not a new concept, however, it is dependent on a number of factors such as the expectations of commissioners, providers, and health and social care policymakers, as well as the patient and the skill of the clinicians performing the care. Financial cutbacks in the NHS have also had a negative impact on the delivery of some community healthcare services. This article investigates whether all of these factors have impacted on the amount of complex wounds now being managed in the community setting.
