Type 2 diabetes: an update for community nurses

Diabetes is a chronic, metabolic disease characterised by elevated levels of blood glucose (or blood sugar), which over time, can lead to serious damage to the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and...

Diet and stoma care

Health professionals in the community-including both nurses and dietitians-can play a key role in supporting patients to achieve a balanced diet, avoiding nutritional deficiencies, achieving optimal...

Patient decisions in a domiciliary setting

There are numerous reasons why a patient may want, or require, a practitioner's help in making a decision while receiving treatment and care at home. The most obvious need is for information and...

Anticipatory grief and bereavement: the perspective of an individual with autism

A broadly autoethnographic approach was adopted in conceptualising and writing this article. The language used is intentionally ‘informal’, as a letter composed in a more academic style and language...

Roles and responsibilities of the community palliative care key worker: a scoping review

This review sought to provide an overview of the existing literature on the role and responsibilities of the palliative care key worker. Despite being advocated in policies and guidelines (NICE, 2004;...

Resuming activities with a stoma

Management of COPD exacerbations in the community

Dietitians: roles in the community and contribution to patient care

It can be easy to overlook the ‘pandemic’ of malnutrition in the UK. With the abundance of shops, restaurants and fast-food outlets in the country, and with the media focusing often on obesity-the...

The use of digital devices by district nurses in their assessment of service users

The role of a DN is described as highly complex and needing expert knowledge and skills that have been acquired from the completion of the specialist practitioner DN programme (QNI, 2015)....

The role of the district nurse in managing blocked urinary catheters

When dealing with catheter-related complications, it should first be ascertained if the catheter is indeed required (Thompson and Browne, 2019). Nazarko (2019) argues that 30-50% of people with...

Achieving congruence in ‘being and doing’ community nursing

The author's doctoral work revealed two aspects of the DN role: the clinical expertise and the leadership/management aspects, impacting the ability to be person-centred (Dickson et al, 2018; 2020)....

Catheter valves: are they useful in supporting patients in a trial without catheter?

Typically, urinary catheterisation is used to manage retention, but it is important to note that patients may also require catheterisation for a variety of other reasons (Royal College of Nursing,...