Summer months — a blessing or a curse for people with eczema?
Eczema is a dry, itchy sometimes inflamed skin condition. People who have atopic eczema often find that their condition flares and remits with frustrating randomness. Many individuals (or parents of children with eczema) will spend a lot of energy trying to work out what makes their skin better and/or worse. Because there are multiple factors involved in the way eczema develops, it is often impossible to categorically determine what causes flare ups...
General practice nurses play a key role in identifying MS patients and connecting them with specialist services.
A new survey has highlighted concern among multiple sclerosis (MS) specialists, including nurses, that some patients with MS are not engaging with specialist services. The research — Multiple Sclerosis Clinician Survey of 100 Specialist MS Nurses and Neurologists — found that 93% of healthcare professionals with expertise in MS believe that there are people with the condition who are missing out on access to new medicines, symptom control and holistic services, all of which can be offered by the MS team.
An improved profile for GPNs with appropriate redistribution of resources to support them moving forward.
The NHS is now three years into the most radical set of reforms since it was established in 1948. We have seen changes to commissioning and provision, and following the publication of the Five Year Forward View (NHS England, 2014) will continue to see changes to service delivery at every level.
Working in the community, at your practice, clinic or with people in their homes, you will see first-hand increasing numbers of people living with multiple long-term conditions. More often than not, you will be the first point of contact for these people when they are unsure how to manage their condition or have health concerns. The onus is on us as caring professionals to learn all we can about how best to deal with these difficult and complex situations. And of course, if we can work to prevent complications arising, reduce risk and encourage patients to manage their health to the best of their ability, then that’s what we should be doing.
Getting patients to access the care they need is not always easy, here Jason Beckford-Ball spoke to Laura Westwick about a project in east London that is connecting cancer patients with local services.
Too often in health care we are guilty of working alone and not utilising colleagues and services around us, even though they may have expertise and experience that might help us do our jobs better.
I have the fortunate role of being Chair of the Association of Advanced Practice Educators-UK (AAPE-UK), an independent non-governmental, not-for-profit association representing all four countries in the UK. Our mission is to coordinate and represent a collaborative network of higher education institutions (HEIs), academics and professionals across the UK who have a common interest in the education, development and advancement of advanced practice.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK with around 43,000 new cases diagnosed in 2012
(Cancer Research, UK). By 2030, it is predicted that this will be the most common cancer of all (Mistry, 2011). The exponential increase of prostate cancer over the last 40 years is attributed to widespread uptake of the prostate-specific androgen (PSA) test in primary care. Because of this, many prostate cancers are being diagnosed and treated in their very early stages, and subsequently men are living for many years following treatment, or living with indolent disease that will never require treatment in their natural lifespan. As a result, around 84% of men survive for 10 years or more. Prostate cancer has indeed become a ‘long-term condition’.
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