Resources

Due to recent energy price increases, fuel cost rises and hikes in the general cost of living, healthy eating may not be at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts — simply eating may be a serious and very real issue for many.

Considering we live in one of the richest countries in the world, it is interesting quite how many colourful words and phrases the English language has for being hungry – ‘I’m starving’, ‘I’m absolutely ravenous’, ‘I could murder a … [fill-in blanks with favourite fast-food].’

The National Community Nursing Plan 2021–2026 is coming. If you have not heard about this exciting opportunity to use your voice as a highly skilled nurse working in the community, you should get involved.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Bladder & Bowel Forum has become aware that continence nursing is facing some serious challenges. Following yearly strategy day discussions with the committee, concerns were shared that nurses in general seem to have lost confidence in bladder and bowel care and continence assessment.

Healthy skin is important — but, as the largest organ of the body and with its external aspect, it can be vulnerable. We can protect skin from the sun, and avoiding smoking and stress and eating a well-balanced diet may delay premature ageing of the skin and prevent various skin complaints (American Academy of Dermatology Association [AAD], 2022). However, it still requires great care.

The Malnutrition Pathway has developed a new online resource focusing on the nutritional needs of patients with cancer (www.malnutritionpathway. co.uk/cancer), which aims to enable nurses to recognise nutritional issues and provide first-line advice. The resource is supported by downloadable patient fact sheets.

Next year, I will have completed four decades in health care. One of the enduring things you learn with longevity in health care is that the NHS consistently ‘re-invents the wheel’. Introducing shiny new solutions which some of us know are not new and in some cases not that shiny. The latest of these are virtual wards in England, apparently first ‘pioneered’ in March 2020 to prevent emergency admission and to assist with early discharge from hospital.

Chronic oedema is a challenging clinical problem (Figure 1), which will continue to increase and for which most healthcare professionals receive little formal training (Sneddon, 2019). This omission in training can lead to a lack of awareness, confidence and specialist knowledge regarding chronic oedema (Allen and Morgan, 2021).

According to a best practice statement (Wounds UK, 2019), wound complexity increases the likelihood of wound chronicity and can make a wound hard to heal. A ‘complex’ venous leg ulcer (VLU) has a number of indications that link to lymphovenous disease

It has been reported that one in 500 people in the UK are living with a stoma (Colostomy UK, 2022) and nearly three-quarters of people with a stoma experience skin problems. Therefore, skin assessment, cornerstone of peristomal skin care. This article introduces common peristomal complications, focusing on the assessment and prevention of two distinct groups of peristomal skin damage; peristomal moisture-associated skin damage (PMASD), one of the types of moisture-associated skin damage (MASD), and peristomal medical adhesive-related skin injuries (PMARSI).