Resources

When our son Jack told my husband and I that he was gambling, we had no idea his life was at risk. As parents, we thought we knew all the dangers to warn our children about — drinking, drugs, smoking, road safety, sexual predators.

National charity, RNID, is concerned that many people are risking their hearing by trying to remove problematic ear wax themselves, as they are unable to access wax services
on the NHS. The charity is calling for fully funded ear wax removal services to be brought back into primary and community care settings, in line with National Institute for Health and
Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, and for the NHS to clarify how people can safely manage ear wax build-up themselves at home.

Veterans and the armed forces community should be high on our agendas as healthcare professionals. In 2021, for the first time, Census data aimed to capture the true number of veterans living in the UK. Data revealed that 1,853,112 people in England and Wales reported that they had previously served in the UK armed forces; to put that into perspective, that is 3.8% of total residents aged 16 years and over, a significant proportion of the population. Despite this, research suggests that many GP surgeries do not know how many veteran patients they have, or indeed how to address their specific health needs, which may differ from those of the general population for various reasons (Simpson et al, 2015).

Last November I was proud and privileged to be joined by over a thousand nurses,  speakers and leaders across the country for the live launch of the new nursing version of our ShinyMind mental health and wellbeing app — available now, free of charge to all NHS nurses, midwives, nursing associates, and healthcare support workers in England. 

Bowel Cancer UK is the UK’s leading bowel cancer charity, determined to save lives and improve the quality of life of everyone affected by bowel cancer. Its vision is a future where nobody dies of the disease.

Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK and the second biggest cancer killer (Bowel Cancer UK, 2022a). Nearly 43,000 people are diagnosed with bowel
cancer every year in the UK (Bowel Cancer, 2022b).

This clinical skills series — Think menopause — looks at menopause-related issues to help general practice nurses (GPNs) identify, assess and manage women whose day-to-day lives may be detrimentally affected by this stage in their life. Here, Sue Thomas, advanced nurse practitioner (ANP) based in Leamington Spa, discusses the complications that can arise with genitourinary syndrome of the menopause (GSM).

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic long-term condition that occurs mostly in intertriginous areas of the skin. Unfortunately, HS is often not recognised and is poorly managed in clinical practice. Early detection and referral to an appropriate service such as dermatology is essential to reduce the long-term impact of the disease. Treatment is
multifactorial and includes management of associated comorbidities and lifestyle factors, such as obesity and smoking, medication, surgical intervention and managing depression and anxiety. This article explores the assessment and management options for general practice nurses (GPNs) to consider when presented with a patient with HS.

Tracheomalacia, bronchomalacia and laryngomalacia are conditions where there is a deficiency in the functioning of the cartilage in the airway walls, which causes them to be weaker or even absent in places. This leads to an exaggerated luminal narrowing within the affected airway during expiration. The malacia may be localised or generalised. There is limited literature and published research in this area. These three conditions are seen in both children and adults. However, because of the size of the airways in small children and the more marked clinical response to any narrowing of the airway, these malacias are usually diagnosed at an earlier stage than when the conditions occur in adults. In the fully mature airway, the symptoms may be less obvious, leading to the conditions
being under-recognised and under-diagnosed in adults. It is also important to understand that in the adult population malacia may coexist with more common conditions such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), where breathlessness, cough, dyspnoea and other symptoms may be misattributed to these more common diseases.
This article raises awareness of these three malacia conditions.

Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) can affect individuals at any age, yet often develops in the younger population, accounting for approximately 8% of diabetes diagnoses in the UK. Although there has been extensive research into the physiology of diabetes, less work has addressed the psychosocial demands and consequent effects on management and quality of life. This article is a critical synthesis of the literature, adopting the Health Stigma and Discrimination Framework (Stangl et al, 2019) as a theoretical lens through which the multifactorial impact of stigma for individuals living with T1DM is unpacked. 
Having this understanding can help general practice nurses (GPNs) recognise how stigma within T1DM can permeate throughout the five layers of society: individual, interpersonal, community, organisational, and policy. A case study is provided to highlight how nurses working within primary and community care are well positioned to help understand the
causes of stigma for individuals living with T1DM.

Pneumonia continues to cause mortality around the world, despite advances in treatment and prevention. The disease can affect any age and can present with variable degrees of severity ranging from mild to severe, with the worst cases resulting in admission to hospital. While vaccination in the UK has impacted on the severity and death rate of this potentially devastating disease, the condition continues to be the largest cause of mortality in children with the highest death rates seen in under developed countries. This article gives an overview of treatment, management and prevention, as well as a brief insight into the possible long-term effects following recovery from pneumonia in babies and children.