Use of decongestants in cold and flu season

As we make our way through cold and flu season, nurses in the community are likely to encounter many patients with varying degrees of illness from these viruses..

Enhancing quality of life against all odds

One of the many dimensions of community nursing is to provide end-of-life care at home. While this aspiration follows from the NHS strategy of empowering people to be cared for and to die in their...

How common is dysphagia in older adults living at home and what are the potential risk factors?

The systematic review undertook a comprehensive search of published and unpublished studies using a range of electronic databases (including MEDLINE, EBSCO etc.) and citation searches up to 2014. One...

What are the benefits of using self-management plans for COPD patients in the community: a critical review of the literature

Three qualitative studies were critiqued. Only one, Laue et al (2017), used a phenomenological design to address the views of patients. A second qualitative study by Williams et al (2014) explored...

Managing medication at the end of life: supporting family carers

Healthcare professionals often underestimate the complexities and difficulties experienced in managing medication in the home and the considerable, associated hidden work carried out by family members...

Community nurse lecturers’ experiences of pre-registration nurse education: a phenomenological study

Building upon the author’s personal reflections about teaching community nursing to pre-registration students (Reynolds, 2022), a phenomenological study explored the experiences of other community...

Overview of stoma care in the community

There are specific clinical standards that have been developed and reviewed by a group of experienced specialist stoma care nurses, in conjunction with the Royal College of Nursing (Securicare, 2019)....

Advance planning in district nursing practice

As in all other aspects of clinical treatment and care, the genuine consent of the patient is essential, both now and in the future. The reliable prediction of consent at some future time may be...

Winter preparedness: a national framework for the delegation of insulin administration

As we approach the winter months, health and social care continues to experience significant demand. There is a need to effectively plan how we use the skills and knowledge of our workforce, to manage...

Hearing the client voice

In the UK, ‘…there is no direct monetary relationship between the patient and the service provider, with all care being free at the point of delivery…As a consequence, satisfaction surveys of UK...

Emotional awareness and emotional intelligence

I would like to start this editorial with a polemic discussion about ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ skills, which some literature name as technical and non-technical skills, respectively. We know that the ‘hard’...

Minimising a ‘twindemic’

‘Alongside concerns about an autumn spike of COVID-19 infections, is the possibility of a major influenza epidemic arising from the lack of circulating influenza virus over the last 2 years due to...

Medication savings for the NHS and for patients

Over the years, cheaper versions of the same drugs have been acquired by NHS England. An example of this is the drug adalimumab (NHS England, 2022), which is used to treat over 45 000 patients with...

Infection control in the community: recap on policy and procedure

Use a wrap instead: using compression wraps in lymphoedema and venous disease

The lymphatics are a complex system that drain fluid out of the body's tissues and back into the circulatory system. Initial lymphatics are made up of a single layer of endothelial cells—the cells...