IN BRIEF Nurse Roisin Fallon-Williams, pictured, has been appointed chief executive of Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust. Ms Fallon-Williams, who was appointed interim chief executive at the trust last October, began her nursing career in 1982. She has worked at board level in NHS trusts for more than 12 years. The trust received a ‘good’ rating from the Care Quality Commission last December following a three-day inspection. A European initiative on environmental sustainability has been set up by an academic team led by Plymouth University. The NurSusTOOLKIT project is a three-year, EU-funded partnership also involving universities in Germany, Spain and the Netherlands to combine expertise in nursing, sustainability and global health to produce a range of online best practice and teaching materials. nursus.eu Open visiting was introduced in Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust’s three hospitals last week. A trial showed flexible visiting aided recovery and particularly benefited patients with dementia by affording relatives more contact with them. Trust chief nurse Sam Foster said: ‘We understand how stressful being in hospital can be for patients and their loved ones.’ Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has begun a partnership with Marie Curie Cancer Care to expand its palliative care service and improve co-ordination between hospital and community staff. The partnership, which aims to give patients nearing the end of their lives more choice about where they receive care, has resulted in the trust recruiting its first modern matron for palliative care, and seven additional nurses to the nurse liaison service. Admiral Nurses play a crucial role in supporting care home residents with dementia and have a positive effect on the culture of the organisations, research shows. The charity Orders of St John Care Trust commissioned the University of Worcester’s Association for Dementia Studies to examine the Admiral Nurse role in 70 of its care homes. Researchers concluded the nurses’ knowledge and support reduced the need to transfer residents between homes. www.osjct.co.uk/news/ admiral-nurse-role-provides-valuable-support Three out of four people will survive bowel cancer for more than five years by 2025, the charity Bowel Cancer UK pledged as part of its plans to develop its research. The charity announced it is moving into research and will focus on improving early diagnosis and treatment. It hopes to transform current survival rates. Major changes to the care system in England were introduced last week under the Care Act 2014. The legislation, described by care minister Norman Lamb as the most comprehensive overhaul of social care since 1948, enshrines a new principle of individual wellbeing. The focus on preventive and individual care is likely to mean some changes for care home nursing staff.

WARDS’ ACCOLADES FOR END OF LIFE CARE Two NHS trusts have become the first to be recognised for the quality of their end of life care. Wards at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust have been given accreditations by the National Gold Standards Framework Centre (GSF). The GSF is the UK’s leading provider of training for generalist health and social care professionals working in end of life care. Three wards –an oncology ward and a haemotology ward at Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and a stroke ward at Royal Lancaster Infirmary – demonstrated key improvements in the quality of care for patients in the final year, months, weeks and days of life. Crucially, this enabled more people to die at home if that was their choice. Care Quality Commission chief inspector of hospitals Sir Mike Richards, who presented the trusts with the awards, urged other hospitals to follow their example. He said: ‘End of life care is a central focus in our inspection process of all hospitals.’

Success of Dutch district nursing hard to repeat in UK The UK healthcare system can learn from an innovative nurse-led care service in the Netherlands, but using it here could prove a challenge because of revalidation, the RCN said. The college has investigated the Buurtzorg district nursing model in which small, self-managing teams of nurses and allied health professionals provide co-ordinated home care for specific catchment areas, normally covering between 40 and 60 patients. In a briefing paper, the RCN welcomed the ‘remarkable’ success of the model and said the UK should also foster nurse innovation. But it identifies challenges to introducing the model to the UK, including limited funding and scope for continuing professional development (CPD). CPD is not a regulatory requirement for nurses in the Netherlands unlike in the UK where registrants will have to complete 40 hours of CPD under the revalidation system being introduced in October. To read the briefing, visit www.rcn.org.uk/ support/policy/policy_briefings/2015-briefings

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Success of Dutch district nursing hard to repeat in UK.

The UK healthcare system can learn from an innovative nurse-led care service in the Netherlands, but using it here could prove a challenge because of ...
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