Resources

Heart failure (HF) is a complex clinical syndrome which arises when the heart is unable to pump blood adequately around the body, leading to a range of symptoms from shortness of breath and fatigue to fluid retention. HF care is complex, multifaceted, and is often delivered in varied settings by a range of healthcare workers depending on
local resources and services. To this end, the British Society for Heart Failure (BSH), using Delphi methodology (Barrett and Heale, 2020), has collaborated with cardiologists, specialist nurses, pharmacists, leads from primary and secondary care, as well as those from the wider multidisciplinary team (MDT), to develop an online resource with the aim of supporting this complex management, clinician competence and confidence, and increasing guideline-directed care. This article encourages use of this pathway and raises the importance of HF management from detection to palliative care (Karauzum et al, 2018).

Rectal cancer is common in the UK, affecting about 12,000 people each year. The common treatment for rectal cancer is surgery, such as an anterior resection which may also be combined with chemoradiation. Treatment for rectal cancer, however, is likely to cause subsequent problems with bowel function. Changes to the bowel can present with faecal incontinence and the need to rush to the toilet. Nurses can assist with some simple interventions, such as medication to bulk up the bowel motion or changes to the diet to thicken the bowel motion. If symptoms are severe and are not resolved using these methods, there are other interventions that can be tried, such as sacral nerve modulation which will require referral to a specialist.

Childhood eczema, also known as atopic dermatitis, is a chronic skin condition that affects millions of children worldwide. The condition is characterised by dry, itchy, and inflamed patches of skin that can appear anywhere on the body. While the physical symptoms of eczema are often the focus of treatment, the condition can also have
a significant impact on a child’s emotional wellbeing. Added to this, the strain that it can put on families in terms of loss of sleep, time off work, financial and time of managing a chronic condition, and sibling jealousy of attention given to the child with eczema can mean that the stresses of eczema are shared by the whole family, not just the affected child. This article examines these issues further with recommendations for how the emotional impact of eczema may be more effectively managed.

Here, Callum Metcalfe-O’Shea, advanced nurse practitioner diabetes specialist and co-chair for the Practice Nurse Diabetes Forum for Norfolk, looks at how general practice nurses (GPN) can discuss nutrition with patients newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes to ensure that they feel motivated and engaged in their healthcare journey. This article, the second part in our diabetes digest series, focuses on the initial consultation when patients are still coming to terms with their diagnosis. While individual diet plans are not discussed, a review of carbohydrates and their role in diabetes management, alongside medication considerations, are explored.

General practice nursing has adapted and evolved many times in the two decades I have been one. I have developed many new skills in this time and I now practice at a level way
beyond what I would have imagined when I started my nurse training in 1986. I probably wouldn’t have believed you then if you had told me I would be diagnosing, investigating,
prescribing, and referring in the same way my medical colleagues do 37 years later. We were not even able to take blood or give paracetamol in 1986. Times have changed and
continue to change.

Despite the medical advances of the past century, modern healthcare services often seem to treat our bodies as a series of unconnected parts, our ailments divided according to arbitrary physical labels. We may see a urologist for our weak bladder, a cardiologist for a malfunctioning heart, and a psychiatrist for any mental health issues. While it makes sense to apportion separate parts of the body to qualified specialists, these divisions can result in an inability among healthcare staff to see the ‘bigger picture’ — or to use modern healthcare terminology, to treat the patient ‘holistically’.

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.