Specialist practitioners who head up a team of community nurses and health care assistants working with patients and their families with acute, complex and end-of-life needs to maximise their health and wellbeing.
What does the service provide?
The team provides a wide range of services to patients depending on individual needs, including:
- Medication management including diabetes management
- Wound care including pressure ulcer prevention advice and equipment provision
- Leg ulcer management
- End of Life care, ensuring patients can remain in their own home if this is their choice. This might involve ensuring the patient has the right drugs, so they are free of pain, that their last months, weeks, or days are as comfortable as possible and that the family are supported before, during and after a loved one’s death.
- Catheter and continence care
- Intravenous antibiotics
- Chemotherapy disconnection
- Phlebotomy
How to access the service
Only patients who are housebound can access the service. They can self-refer into the service, or a carer can do this on their behalf.
The team also receives referrals from GPs and other health or social care professionals. A health care professional will provide the teams telephone number to patients at their first visit.
They aim to triage calls within four hours during working hours and book appropriate appointments.
Hours of service
- 7 days a week, 365 days a year
- 8am - 11pm (if any urgent overnight nursing care is required your Community Nursing team will provide details of support and contact details)
There are five community teams that cover the east Surrey area visiting patients in their own home and residential care homes.
A day in the life of a Community Nurse at First Community
Watch the short videos below to hear from our Community Nurses and see what it's like to be a Community Nurse at First Community.