Record-keeping is an integral part of the general practice nurse’s (GPN’s) skill set.
The new Nursing and Midwifery Council code of conduct (NMC, 2015) has record-keeping threaded throughout the new four standards highlighting its importance for all practitioners.
Electronic Medical Records (EMR) used by GPNs aid the production of chronological and contemporaneous records.
Poor records are often reflective of poor practice.
GPNs need to always consider both professional and legal requirements for record-keeping.
This feature asks experts in their particular field to take a look at a therapy area and examine some of the challenges that general practice nurses (GPNs) may face. In this issue, we look at how best to prepare the wound bed for healing...
How can desloughing a wound aid the patient experience?
This piece was sponsored by an educational grant from Urgo Medical.
In each issue of the journal we speak to general practice nurses about their role in primary care. Here, Sarah Anderson and Melissa Canavan talk about why and how they set up the Leeds Respiratory Network.
Welcome to the third issue of the Journal of General Practice Nursing. This summer has been incredibly busy, and has featured lots of great news. In this issue, we’ll be sharing information about our exciting new workshop with Diabetes UK, a heart-warming graduation ceremony, and changes to inhaler device colours.
The coming months will see us holding the first study days for our new modules, and introducing our brand new Virtual Learning Environment, which we’re sure you’ll love!
We hope that you, too, are excited about this issue’s update and it gives you cause to join us in working towards our vision: Everyone living with a Long Term Condition receives high quality care and is empowered to manage their condition.
Practice matters: In each issue of the Journal of General Practice Nursing we investigate a hot topic currently affecting our readers. Here, Binkie Mais looks at patient participation groups (PPGs) and asks the question...Are clinicians taking patient involvement seriously enough?
Last year 80,000 people died prematurely because they smoked. Today it will kill 200 people (Health and Social Care Information Centre [HSCIC], 2015). Despite progress in driving down smoking rates, it is still the leading cause of preventable death. For every person who dies from smoking, 20 more are living with life-limiting illnesses (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). Recent Action on Smoking and Health (ASH, 2014) research estimates that smokers need the care of friends, relatives or social services on average nine years earlier than a non-smoker.
A childhood immunisation programme like no other seen before.
Pauline MacDonald gives her views on the groundbreaking national programme to vaccinate more children against flu.
If you don’t protect your vaccines, they won’t protect your patients.
Vaccines save lives — but the cost procured by the Government is over £300 million a year. Last calendar year, vaccines wasted through incidents in primary care had a value at list price of £3.7 million. This figure represents vaccines that were disposed as a result of both avoidable and non-avoidable incidents, including failure to store them properly. This does not include any flu vaccine wastage (other than vaccines from the children’s programme), or any other centrally procured vaccine which Public Health England (PHE) supply and do not collect data on (e.g. rabies vaccine) (personal communication with Chris Lucas, vaccine supply team, PHE).
