This month I would like to talk about our community nursing services.
We have a wide range of community nursing services within the south east of the county, and for the local community of Spalding and surrounding areas the majority of these are based at the Johnson Community Hospital.
Other teams are based as far out as Long Sutton, also covering their local areas.
The community nursing teams offer a wide range of services for patients in their own homes, from care of patients needing treatment for long-term conditions, to short episodes of care following surgery or bouts of illness.
In order to maintain continuity of care, our community nursing teams are aligned to GP practices to enable them to create links with the surgeries.
The community nursing teams also work alongside specialist nurses who provide advice and support to both staff and patients when required.
This could be in relation to their diabetes, heart failure or end of life needs.
As part of these packages of care, the community nurses often dispense or order equipment to be delivered to patients’ homes in order to aid their daily routines.
This equipment can range from simple aids to assist them whilst standing, right through to pressure relieving equipment essential in helping existing pressure ulcers heal, or to ensure the skin does not break into an ulcer.
We work in conjunction with an equipment provider who delivers the equipment on our behalf if it is not small or safe enough to be carried by the nurses.
Some of our patients will need this equipment for very long periods of time or until the end of their life, but others may only use rehabilitation-type equipment to enable them to return to a normal standard of living.
One of the challenges we face within community nursing services is ensuring that where equipment is no longer needed it is returned for cleaning, decontamination and servicing in order to be allocated to another patient in the future.
If equipment is no longer required then the community nursing team can be contacted via the Johnson Community Hospital switchboard on 01775 652000 or the number on the sticker on the equipment can be called in order to book a collection.
This will ensure equipment which is often expensive is used to its full capacity.
Is there anything you’d like to know more about for community healthcare services?
Send me your questions via spaldingeditor@jpress.co.uk.