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’.
For researchers and policy-makers, nurses working in primary care are notoriously hard to reach; they are without a management structure with a chief nurse or director of nursing at the top of the organisation, as is the case for their
colleagues working in a community or hospital-based provider.
So, when more than 3,400 general practice nurses (GPNs) recently completed a major Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI) survey, it sent a clear message that the nurses had a story to tell.
When I first started in general practice in 1990 I worked with a general practice nurse (GPN), a health visiting team, a district nursing team, a community psychiatric nurse (CPN), a social worker and a benefits advisor, and we were accountable for the 24/7 expert generalist cover for our registered list of 8,500 people.
I entered general practice after a decade of training and experience as a general and vascular surgeon and it took me some while to adjust to the shock of realising that my mindset, attitudes and beliefs, drummed into me through medical school and beyond, had to be reframed: I had to become an expert generalist.
There has been much discussion about Jeremy Hunt’s suggestion that hospital consultants need to adhere to seven day working. This mirrors the Prime Minister’s proposal for seven-day working for general practice offering extended opening hours across the country — an initiative for hard-working people to be able to see their GP seven days a week.
Diabetes education is key to avoid diabetes-related complications.
Katherine Calder gives her views on how general practice nurses can help patients to better manage their diabetes.
How many people with diabetes do you see in your practice every week? With 3.9 million people now living with diabetes in the UK (Health and Social Care Information Centre [HSCIC], 2014), and this number rising all the time, it’s likely that more and more of your patients have diabetes.
New framework opens the way for GPN education and career pathways.
For many years, access to education and career development for general practice nurses (GPNs) has been variable and ad hoc depending on where individuals worked in the country and the general practice settings in which they worked. In my own experience as a GPN, even though I had access to clinical education, to be able to act out leadership with new-found knowledge and skills and to make changes for patients in my care, meant leaving general practice and looking to primary care in the mainstream NHS to fulfil these career aspirations.
Success!