Resources

Cigarette smoking is one of the leading preventable causes of ill health and death. Despite a continued decline, figures show that 14.4% or six million adults still smoke in the UK, with those aged between 25 and 34 years being the highest smokers (Action on Smoking and Health [ASH], 2019). The White Paper, ‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People’ (Department of Health [DH], 2011) recognises the impact that smoking has among younger people in England.

Here, Rebecca Bedford, community children’s nursing specialist practice student, University of Hertfordshire and Cambridge Community Health Services, talks about how a shared challenge and increased use of social media and virtual meetings during the pandemic has offered the opportunity for community children’s nurses to develop a national network, raise the profile of the work they do, and develop a collective national voice.

Our ‘community matters’ feature discusses the real issues that we are facing in relation to the recruitment of community nurses and the retention of existing ones. The last few years have been extremely difficult, resulting in many of us re-evaluating our work/life balance. We have seen many of our colleagues retire, although many have then been encouraged to return and, while working less hours, they continue to sustain our workforce and share their skills and knowledge.

Have you ever asked yourself why you wanted to be a community nurse in the first place? Perhaps you were interested in health promotion, or children’s services. Maybe it was the lack of shift work and an improved work–life balance, or simply the variety of patients in the
community. Whatever your reasons, it seems that less and less of your colleagues feel the same way, with community nurse attrition rates on the rise, and the numbers of retirees not being replaced by new registrants.

Bowel Cancer UK is the UK’s leading bowel cancer charity, determined to save lives and improve the quality of life of everyone affected by bowel cancer. Its vision is a future where nobody dies of the disease. Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK and the second biggest cancer killer (Bowel Cancer UK, 2022a). Nearly 43,000
people are diagnosed with bowel cancer every year in the UK (Bowel Cancer UK, 2022b).

In November last year, the Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI) joined the International Council of Nurses (ICN). The ICN is a federation of more than 130 national nurses’ associations representing more than 27 million nurses worldwide. Based in Geneva, it has a powerful role as an advocate of the nursing profession on the world stage and works closely with the World Health Organization and other international bodies. Since the QNI announcement, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has also joined the ICN after a gap of several years.

Childhood continence problems are common. One in 12 children are affected by a bowel or bladder problem: that’s around three children in every primary school class. In an average
secondary school, around 30–40 of young people struggle with a wetting or soiling issue (Joinson et al, 2018).

Some years ago, the Self Care Forum (www.selfcareforum.org) realised that there was a great deal of innovation in self care work taking place across the UK; empowering individuals and making a real difference to health in the community, often with limited resources and challenging coronavirus restrictions. Thus, the Self Care Innovation Awards were introduced to share the practical learning and recognise self care excellence.

Across the UK, there are profound health inequalities for people living in rural communities when compared to their metropolitan counterparts. Barriers, such as slow advances in health technology and a lack of healthcare professionals, are causing issues including lower life expectancy, a mental health crisis, and lower survival rates for diseases such as cancer for people living in rural communities. This is affecting people of all ages, with young people in deprived rural areas more likely to have chronic health conditions.

You might be surprised to learn that heart failure (HF) affects almost a million Brits, and that there are 200,000 new cases annually (British Heart Foundation — https://bit.ly/3LAxTlO). At Pumping Marvellous, the UK’s only dedicated patient-led heart failure charity, we are not surprised that you did not know that. HF’s profile is far lower than it should be, and people
— decision makers, public, policy makers, politicians — are reluctant to talk about HF.