New Learning Resource on Homeless Health Nursing Published

The Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI) today launched a new learning resource about homelessness at an event in central London.

Dr Crystal Oldman CBE, QNI chief executive launched the resource at the event attended by around seventy nurses and allied health professionals who work with homeless people.

‘Transition to Homeless Health Nursing’ is an eight chapter self-guided online resource designed for nurses new to working with people who are homeless. The resource includes information about safe working practices, risk assessment, common patient conditions, multidisciplinary working, policy, legislation and safeguarding.

It can be used as a refresher guide for more experienced community nurses, as teaching materials for educators, or learning materials for student nurses looking for a placement or a career move into homeless health nursing.

The QNI’s Homeless Health Programme Manager David Parker-Radford said, ‘Excellent nursing care for people who are homeless can only come by learning on the job over time. This resource aims to fill in some of the gaps, speed up the learning process and help develop the confidence of nurses to understand homelessness, work collaboratively, know the current legislation and get involved in policy.

He added, ‘I am proud of the work of the nurses in the network who have contributed to making the resource possible and I am sure it will have widespread benefit to professionals who care about giving the best possible care to people facing some of the most difficult challenges in life.’

The guidance was developed following a focus group with young homeless people and a survey of the experiences over 80 homeless health nurses. Members of the QNI’s National Homeless Health Advisory Group were also key contributors to this resource, and this was followed by peer review with nurses who have expertise in this area of work.

The guidance is the fourth in a series of QNI learning resources dedicated to helping nurses with the ‘transition’ to community nursing disciplines. The other resources are: Transition to District Nursing, Transition to General Practice Nursing and Transition to School Nursing.

ENDS

Notes:

1. The chapters of the resource are all downloadable at https://qni.org.uk/nursing-in-the-community/transition-community-nursing/homeless-health/
2. The resource was launched at a QNI event, Managing Psychological Trauma in Healthcare, held at the offices of homelessness charity ‘The Passage’ in central London.
3. More information about the event is on the QNI website at https://qni.org.uk/news-and-events/events/managing-psychological-trauma-healthcare/ . Speaker presentations and an event summary will be added shortly.
4. The QNI’s Homeless Health Programme is funded by Oak Foundation.