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Questions about access to District Nurses in Rugby

Posted By steve8

"Questions about access to District Nurses in Rugby"

About: NHS Coventry and Rugby CCG South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust

(as a relative),

I'm confused about what District Nurses do and how they can be accessed in Rugby.

My mother lives in Rugby Warwickshire. She is 84 and has multiple long term conditions; is quite deaf; has poor eye sight; is housebound, and has recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.

Recently she had a change of medication which required her blood pressure to be taken. Getting a District Nurse to do this involved multiple calls to the GP, and took 10 days. When she came the District Nurse was lovely, she left some notes with my mother and said she would visit again. This didn't happen.

District Nurse visits seem to be scheduled for them, as a result they really don't meet the needs of their patients. I believe this way of organising the service fails the patients badly (especially those who are housebound); is wasteful and probably results in unnecessary escalation and admissions to hospital.

Since being diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease Mum has been promised a Parkinson's Nurse visit. Two weeks on we still have no idea when this will happen (nor does the GP Surgery). She's started on the new drugs, so hopefully this visit will happen soon.

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Responses

Update posted by steve8 (a relative)

Interesting that this has had no response from the services. The Parkinson's Nurse has visited and was really good. The District Nurse that saw Mum for her heart failure, who again was really good, never returned. I will follow this up via the GP and submit another story as necessary.

I think the District Nurses in Warwickshire are being badly let down by the way they are organised.

Response from South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust 10 years ago
South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 09/01/2015 at 16:02
Published on Care Opinion at 16:21

On behalf of the Trust I am sorry to hear about your Mother’s experience. We would like the opportunity to look in to this and respond appropriately. In order to do this we will require further details, therefore please could you email me directly at bie.grobet@swft.nhs.uk

Yours sincerely,

Bie Grobet, General Manager of Adult Services

Update posted by steve8 (a relative)

Thank you for looking in to my Mum's concerns, and for your excellent response to Mum. She feels confident in the District Nurses and so do I.

I think some of the underlying issues (which I'm sure you're aware of) are:

* GP's workloads mean that home visits are expensive in all respects, and often Mum says it's a Nurse not a Doctor who is best positioned to help. So I understand GPs aim to consult over the 'phone whenever this is a good option.

*Lack of face to face interaction or some sort of MDT type working between GPs and District Nurses means messages get lost, & no professional seems to have an overview of all services for the patient, so people may fall through the net. Ultimately this costs more in visits and contacts to sort things out, which could have been handled better in the first instance.

*People who are housebound have poor access to services except in an emergency. e,g, if Mum could link with the GP or Nurses on-line. It would save time, she is very deaf and lip reads so to see someones face would help. Mum is very adept at texting (better than me) so I think this would work. I have to say this is my idea not her's though.

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