Media Release

18 December 2007

Local Nurses Scoop Chairman’s Award

A local project involving nurses in the Belfast City Hospital and their local District Nursing colleagues has won first prize in an awards ceremony organised by Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. The nurses received the Chairman’s Award in the ‘Doing More for Less’ category in recognition of their innovative development of community based alternatives to hospitalisation.

We’ve often heard it said that “not everyone in hospital needs to be there” – but doing something about that depends on developing skills and models of care to support the appropriate patients in the community. The Community Nurse Inreach Team aims to prevent unnecessary admission to Hospital, facilitate early enhanced hospital discharge and act as a resource to the hospital staff on the menu of services available in the community. The Team also ‘case-finds’ patients suitable for discharge in A&E, Outpatients and hospital wards.

The Community Nurse Inreach service now means that skills and treatments only previously available in an acute hospital like the Belfast City can be delivered by specially trained District Nurses in the community.

While the patient journey may start in hospital it is now possible for an appropriate patient to return to their own home, much earlier than previously, safe in the knowledge that the level and quality of care will follow them.

The link between the Community Inreach Nurses and colleagues at the City means that the patient remains under the care of the hospital consultant - further enhancing the service and the patient’s peace of mind.

Between April 2006 and September this year the service received 643 referrals, prevented 181 unnecessary admissions to hospital, secured 464 early discharges and saved a total of 2,635 bed days.

District Nursing Sister, Jackie Kayes, who accepted the award on behalf of the Inreach Team, said: “Everyone involved in the initiative is delighted with this Award. It is extremely rewarding for us to be able to nurse those patients in their own homes who would prefer to be there. It’s also very reassuring for patients to know that, while they are recuperating at home, they are still under the care of their hospital consultant.”

In the first Chairman’s Awards since the formation of the new Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, Chairman Pat McCartan commended the Community Nurse Inreach Team for its innovative approach and paid tribute to the dedication and commitment of the nursing staff. The winners were presented with a cup and a cheque for £10,000 to be invested in their service area.