Overview

Fig (Nilgun's daughter): 'Mum was diagnosed in early November. To be honest it was an absolute shock. And yeah, a level of anxiety as to when we come home - how's it going to be? Would I be able to do everything that mum needs? 

The relief that I felt when we were appointed nurses, and nurses came home. They felt like family straight away.

They come twice a day, and the amount of care and work they put in is amazing.'

Nilgun (patient): 'I call them my nurses because they are, my nurses.'

Karen (Head of Nursing): 'Neighbourhood nursing is a model that we've introduced at Guy's and St Thomas' from Holland.'

Sue (Locality nurse manager/coach): 'The ethos of neighbourhood nursing is to ensure that the patients have greater continuity of care, that they have a named nurse, and actually that we promote independence and not dependance.'

Karen: 'The nurses have more flexibility and more input into the way that they care for their patient, and the team is managed by a coach rather than an actual manager.'

Adeola (neighbourhood nurse): 'We work as a team. We plan things within ourselves. We have different roles.'

Sue: 'So they're developing skills that maybe used to be purely sat within the more senior staff. But now they're able to do that.'

Karen: 'We find ways for our teams of nurses to be central in the middle of the neighbourhood that they work in, so they have less geographical area to travel around. 

They become central and key to that neighbourhood.'

Akwasi (neighbourhood nurse): 'If we see patients within walking distance then the patients will get a visit at the time we say we are visiting.'

Karen: 'And what the nurses will do is to help that patient to tap into the local services in their small little area. 

They create a handbook of their local services, then that helps that patient to not have to rely so much on the nurses and it gives them a lot more freedom and a lot more flexibility within their daily life.

What we want to do is to have the same nurse go to see the same patient as much as possible.'

Sue: 'And to have that same nurse coming in who already knows your story, who already knows, actually, you've got an appointment a week on Thursday, I know about that and I'm going to arrange things around that. It takes away that extra sort of, I suppose, stress for the patient. They're already going through a lot.'

Adeola: 'We do know our patients. We see these patients all the time. We see them in their own home. That makes me happy because I can make a difference.'

Nilgun: 'We have a little chat. We have a little laugh as well. We're like a little family.'

Akwasi: 'You develop that sort of trust between yourselves. You know the patient very well, the patient also knows you very well.'

Stanley (patient): 'When you've got the same person or people coming, you get to know them and it's better.

Instead of having strangers coming every other day, you get somebody and they're friendly. 

But the ones I've got coming now is really, really understanding and good. I appreciate that so much.'

Theresa (Stanley's daughter): 'The fact that I know I've got a reliable source that will come in and help my father takes a weight off my mind, because if they didn't, then I really don't know what I'd do.'

Akwasi: 'You are able to develop that rapport and when patients say that "oh, you have been wonderful, you have helped" that is what makes my day.'