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Community Nursing – Healthcare Across the Whole Population and Lifespan

5 April 2023 | Janine Gargett and Kerry Bareham

When you speak to people about their earliest memories of health care, they will often tell you the memories they have of a development health check from a school nurse, affectionally remembered as ‘Nitty Nora the jungle explorer’ or of receiving a vaccination from a general practice nurse.

While public health and population health management interventions are still fundamental elements of nursing in the community, these stories reflect just the tip of the iceberg that represents the range of skills, depth of knowledge and the safety critical nature of nursing in the community today.

For those of us who provide nursing in the community, we are well aware of the wide range of specialist skills and knowledge needed to care for people and families within their own communities and variety of settings including the NHS, public health, social care, the justice system, the third sector and private sector.

The diversity of roles from all four branches of nursing, including mental health, children’s and young people’s nursing, adult and learning disabilities nursing is powerfully articulated in the NHS England and QNI infographic, Community Nurses: Touching People’s Lives Across the Lifespan.

As community nurses, we are skilled super-connectors with naturally strategic insight into the interconnectedness of services and how they intersect with other providers. Along with other health and social care professionals, we improve health and wellbeing outcomes and mitigate health inequalities within our communities.

Janine Gargett and Kerry Bareham

Contributing to Integrated Care Boards

As the largest registered profession in the community workforce, nurses who deliver highly skilled care in the community have untapped potential to contribute to the leadership, development and delivery of the innovations required to deliver the priorities of the NHS Long Term Plan and the work of the emerging Integrated Clinical Boards (ICBs).

Lincolnshire Community Nursing Conference

Therefore, as community nurse leaders, we are delighted to be able to raise the profile of nursing in the community by working together to hold the first ever Lincolnshire Community Nursing Conference on Friday 12^th May 2023, to develop a showcase platform to achieve the following:

Enable emerging ICB and ICS leaders to engage with community nursing and articulate its essential role in delivering the NHS Long Term Plan.
Engage with regional and national leaders such as NHS England’s Deputy Director for Community Nursing, Sam Sherrington.
Recognise the community nursing workforce is wider than NHS providers and represented by a wealth of talent and experience within primary care, public health, third sector and social care.
Raise the profile and celebrate Nursing in the Community.
Share and showcase best practice.
Support retention and recruitment.
Showcase the attractive fulfilling and flexible careers within community nursing to a current and aspirant workforce.
Articulate Lincolnshire community nurses’ contributions to delivering the England CNO, Dame Ruth May’s priorities: workforce and people, system leadership and integration, health equity, prevention and population health management and person-centred practice and improving outcomes.

Website: www.lincolnshirecommunityhealthservices.nhs.uk

Janine Gargett
Head of Nursing, AHP and Professional Practice
Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust
janine.gargett@nhs.net