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.
Book Review – The Social Leadership Handbook by Julian Stodd
Ian Hall is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner in the Orkney Islands, and a Queen’s Nurse. He has provided a review of the book which was the basis of Susie Boyle’s presentation at our Conference in April 2019. This is the introductory book that was offered by Susie Boyle during her talk at the Murrayfield conference recently. I admit that during her talk I struggled to understand some of the language that she was using as it was fairly fast and furious and on subject matter that I had never heard before. At times it sounded like a foreign language, but…
Buurtzorg – Neighbourhood Care
“It is an ethical imperative for neighbourhood nurses to make themselves irrelevant.” Jos de Blok In 2015 I met Jos de Blok, a man who advocates humanity over bureaucracy, and I was absolutely inspired by his extraordinary vision of person centred care in the community. I have been asked by the team at the Alliance, to reflect upon the principles that underpin his work in relation to the Health and Social Care Academy’s rather marvellous Five Provocations. I believe that Jos de Blok’s vision and approach beautifully encompass all 5 of the ‘provocations’ as he elegantly describes in this presentation…
Call for action on advanced dementia
Dr Debbie Tolson is the Alzheimer Scotland Professor of Dementia at the University of the West of Scotland. She is a long-time friend of QNIS and a member of The Fair Dementia Care Commission. In this blog, she highlights the Commission’s new recommendations; its call for action on advanced dementia; and, its implications for community nursing. It is not a coincidence that the Alzheimer Scotland Centre for Policy and Practice is led and staffed by people with a background in community-based nursing. Whether providing care and support in people’s homes or in residential settings, community-based nurses know a great deal…
Call Me Sister – Jane Yeadon
This is the 3rd book in an autobiographical series about the nursing training that the author received on her journey towards becoming a District Nurse. Jane was one of the last to receive the Queen’s Nurse training at Castle Terrace in Edinburgh in the late 1960’s. The book begins with Jane working on a female medical ward in Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. However, by chapter 5, Jane is setting out for her new life as a district nurse near Dingwall. The book is full of compassion and humour. We meet lots of colourful characters, both colleagues and patients. The book…
Care Homes as Learning Environments for Student Nurses
Dr Jane Douglas is currently on the QNIS Queen’s Nurse Programme. Jane is the Executive Care Director at Queen’s House, Kelso, and has written us a blog on why care homes can be excellent placements for student placements. When I was asked to write this blog about care homes as a learning environment, I thought great, that will be easy, but when I came to write it, I actually found it difficult. Where to start? What I found when I thought deeply about care homes as an environment for learning, I found it to be an ‘emporium’ of learning opportunities,…
Carers’ wellbeing
With an increasing number of informal carers in the Tweeddale area who have been identified as caring for a person with dementia, Community Nurses, informal carers and the Borders Carers’ Centre are meeting together to have conversations about the best ways of promoting feelings of health and wellbeing for those at the centre of care.
Caring for the Poor in 20th Century Britain
This report is based on a workshop hosted by the QNIS and Glasgow Caledonian University on 11 and 12 September 2014. The report presents edited versions of the papers delivered at the workshop and a summary of the main issues raised in an open discussion session. The QNIS believes the report makes a strong contribution to increasing our understanding of the health issues poorer people in Scotland faced throughout the twentieth century and how a wide range of interested parties – including governments, hospitals, prisons, district nurses and other health professionals – responded to them. The issues the report raises pose…
Celebrating 70 years of nursing and midwifery in our NHS Scotland
A public exhibition and NHS Big Tea party took place at Edinburgh Napier University on Thursday 5th July 2018 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the National Health Service. The free exhibit helped raise awareness of the history and evolution of nursing and midwifery education, research and practice. It also emphasised the important role nurses and midwives have played from the inception of the NHS in 1948 to present day. A series of posters with historical photographs and fun facts were displayed and a pop quiz was integrated into the exhibit to encourage public participation. This was won by a…