‘Telling the Story’, Impacts of the Delivering Dignity Programme in Scotland
Final impact report of the Delivering Dignity Programme.
A day in the life of a trainee health visitor: Leona Flett, RGU
Arrive at the office at 8.30am, greet all the team. We need to answer any voicemails and emails and document them in client notes. I usually head over to the maternity unit for 9.00am to collect information on postnatal discharges and new pregnancy booking information. I return to the health visitor’s office and allocate the new discharges (now primary visits) to the relevant health visitors. We then arrange to visit the primaries within four days at home. My mentor and I have a primary visit planned for 11.00am. We fill out her paperwork prior to the visit, answer any new…
A day in the life of a trainee health visitor: Leona Flett, RGU
Conference delegate Leona Flett, offers us an insight into a day in the life of a trainee health visitor. Arrive at the office at 8.30am, greet all the team. We need to answer any voicemails and emails and document them in client notes. I usually head over to the maternity unit for 9.00am to collect information on postnatal discharges and new pregnancy booking information.I return to the health visitor’s office and allocate the new discharges (now primary visits) to the relevant health visitors. We then arrange to visit the primaries within four days at home. My mentor and I have…
A fair kick o’ the ba’ – #MHNursesday
21 Feb 2019 marks the first ever UK Mental Health Nurses day. The focus of the day is to gather together voices and experiences from across the UK to celebrate, describe and promote Mental Health Nursing. To mark this Mental Health Nurses Day, we asked a number of our friends, Fellows and Queen’s Nurses to write about various aspects around being a mental health nurse. We have three to highlight during the day. Our final piece has been written by Queen’s Nurse Kelvin Frew, and looks at how positive change in mental health nursing can be made with a fair kick…
Angels of Mercy – Eileen Crofton
The author, Dr Eileen Crofton, had a long and distinguished career as a doctor and medical researcher, notably helping to found Action on Smoking and Health, under the auspices of the Royal College of Physicians. In her retirement, she wrote this book, published in 1997 and originally titled “The Women of Royaumont: A Scottish women’s hospital on the western front”. This well-researched book was edited and reissued as a 2nd edition in 2012 by Eileen Crofton’s son, Ian. It tells the story of a Scottish Women’s Hospital of the First World War. The Hospital was the inspiration of Dr Elsie…
Anticipatory Care – Blog on the QNIS Chair in Community Nursing’s Inaugural Lecture
On 23rd November, QNIS Chair of Community Nursing at Robert Gordon University, Professor Catriona Kennedy, gave her inaugural lecture on Anticipatory Care. Janette Barrie, the National Clinical Lead (Nursing) for Anticipatory Care with Healthcare Improvement Scotland, attended, and has provided us with our latest guest blog. What an honour it was to attend Professor Catriona Kennedy’s Inaugural Lecture at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. Linking in with the QNIS to raise the profile of research within Community Nursing, Professor Kennedy took up post earlier this year. The lecture focussed on Anticipatory Care Planning: A fundamental skill in nursing, and I couldn’t…
Anticipatory Care Planning: gives people greater choice and control over their future care and support
Janette Barrie, from NHS Lanarkshire, discusses Anticipatory Care Planning. In Lanarkshire, we started developing anticipatory care planning a few years ago. Our initial brief as part of the Scottish Government’s Long Term Conditions Collaborative programme, was to present an example of an anticipatory care plan (ACP) used within the care home environment. Although there was a plethora of different care plans, nothing fitted the Scottish government’s criteria of an ACP, so our journey began. Our first steps involved searching the literature to clarify the concept, identify the ACP process and the core content of supporting documentation and resources. Unfortunately there…
Becoming a Queen’s Nurse – Lyndsey’s story
Lyndsey Forsyth is an ADHD Nurse Specialist in Fife. She worked on a children’s ward for five years before taking up her current role in 2005 before the service moved to the community in 2011. Here, Lyndsey talks about what it is like to become a Queen’s Nurse after completing the development programme in 2018. Becoming a Queen’s Nurse was, quite simply, life changing. Like many of you reading this, I had not heard of the programme until my line manager mentioned she was keen to nominate me. I did some research, spoke to one of the previous year’s Queen’s…
Being a Catalyst for Change
Elizabeth Smith is Breastfeeding Advocacy Lead for Scotland within the Scottish Government, she is also a Queen’s Nurse. In 2017 she was Community Infant Feeding Nurse at NHS Ayrshire and Arran and received QNIS funding through Catalysts for Change. Here, she tells us about her journey through Catalysts. Read more about her project, here. My role covered a lot of different areas – staff training, policy and guideline development, and the provision of specialist support for the Health Visitor Team for any infant feeding issues. Protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding was also a part of my job. I’d known for a while that…
Being Mindful of the Carers
This award-winning project aimed to pilot a Mindfulness based Cognitive Therapy programme to carers of people with dementia and assess its effectiveness.