Nutrition Nurse Specialists at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital – have scooped this year’s British Society of Gastroenterology Nurses Association (BSGNA) Nurse’s Award.
The BSGNA award recognises individuals or teams who have made a demonstrable, positive impact on patient care.
Newcastle’s team was awarded in recognition of their home parenteral nutrition (HPN) and intestinal failure service, offering the highest quality of care for patients from all over the North East and Cumbria.
“We’re delighted to win the BSGNA’s Nurse’s Award, flying the flag for the Newcastle Hospitals”, says Hayley.
For, what we regard as our ‘Gold Standard’ care pathway to be recognised by professional peers as a beacon of excellence makes us all incredibly proud
Hayley Leyland, Nutrition Nurse Specialist
During 2018/2019 alone, the team – Hayley Leyland, Jess McDonald and Stacey Vass – established 55 new patients on HPN, bringing the total HPN cohort up to 140, making it one of the largest such services in the UK.
Jess McDonald explains: “One of our main roles is to train patients who need HPN – often with a family member or carer – in how to administer parenteral nutrition as independently as possible in their own home.
“We meet the patient in their referring hospital before transfer to Newcastle where we have a conversation about what HPN training will involve, how long it will take and what ongoing support the team will provide after discharge home.”
Stacey Vass adds: “We continue to support the patient at home on the day of discharge, with follow-up visits as required, and we also run a weekly multidisciplinary team clinic as well as a support group, providing a forum for patients to share their experiences, which helps us as nurses to enhance our own learning.”
The Newcastle team’s approach has resulted in 92% of the present HPN cohort managing their nutrition independently at home – a much higher number than other national centres, with the remaining 8% supported by community nurses who have been trained in central line care by the HPN team.
As well as empowering patients to look after their own nutrition, improving their quality of life, their specialist role has been fundamental to preventing the complications associated with HPN, such as managing catheter damage and central venous catheter related bloodstream infections (CVC-BSI).
Newcastle’s approach to HPN has resulted in consistently low incidence of CVC-BSI and rates of line infection is significantly lower than the national quality standard – 0.22 per 1000 catheter days, which is far lower than national standard of 1.00 per 1000 catheter days
At Newcastle, the team aims to focus on patients’ ambitions. This approach has allowed the team to facilitate HPN patients to travel as far as Europe, Gambia and the US, while some patients have been able to return to part-time work.
