1. Community Nursing
Laura Greenshields 1

2. A bit of history………….. Care service since 1859
 ”to relieve suffering and to teach them the rules of health and comfort” (Rathbone 1860).
Advisory role around nutrition, housing and disease management, as well as physical care.
1898- Queen Victoria- caring for the sick in their homes…
…evolved to a service to support those with ill-health and were ‘house bound’
William Rathbone  a Liverpool merchant and philanthropist, had employed a nurse, Mary Robinson, to nurse his wife at home during her final illness. After his wife’s death, he retained Mary Robinson’s services so that people in Liverpool who could not afford to pay for nursing would benefit from care in their own homes. Seeing the good that nursing in the home could do, William Rathbone and Florence Nightingale worked together to try to develop the service. When too few trained nurses could be found, Rathbone set up and funded a nursing school in Liverpool specifically to train nurses for the 18 ‘districts’ of the City – and so organised ‘district nursing’ began. 2

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5. Role of the District Nurse
Care in 1860s caring for those with asthma, bronchitis, abscesses, with ‘diseases of the heart’ and with cancer patients.  These were the first beneficiaries of district nursing. 
…….still the same today 5

6. Role……..
District nurses play a crucial role in the primary health care team. They visit people in their own homes or in residential care homes, providing increasingly complex care for patients and supporting family members.
As well as providing direct patient care, district nurses also:
have a teaching and support role
working with patients to enable them to care for themselves or with family members teaching them how to give care to their relatives
play a vital role in keeping hospital admissions and readmissions to a minimum and ensuring that patients can return to their own homes as soon as possible
assess the healthcare needs of patients and families, monitor the quality of care they're receiving and be professionally accountable for delivery of care: patients can be of any age, but often many of them will be elderly, while others may have been recently discharged from hospital, be terminally ill or have physical disabilities
work on their own or with other groups, such as the social services, voluntary agencies and other NHS organisations and help to provide and co-ordinate a wide range of care services 6

7. District nursing in the Scottish Highlands
2012- integration of health and social care adult services
2 community nursing teams in Inverness and near area- East and West
1 community team- Nairn and Ardersier
Number of community mental health provision teams/services 7

8. Local Community areas
West East 8

9. Insight into a number of community services……
Midwifery
Mental Health
Community Nursing………………
We hope you enjoy the experiences…… 9

10. Thank you
Questions ????? 10