Another award for St Barnabas

After recently winning the Michael Howard Award from Hospice UK, the community care nurse specialists at St Barnabas Hospice have now picked up the Innovation in Healthcare and Wellbeing award at the Lincolnshire Technology and Innovation Awards.

The service came about when Kerry Bareham, nurse consultant at St Barnabas Hospice, penned a dissertation for her MSc which informed a business case for the role of community care nurse specialists.

These nurses, employed by St Barnabas Hospice, were placed in Lincoln County and Boston Pilgrim hospitals to educate clinicians on how to identify patients in their last year of life and develop person-centred planning.

The two nurses – Ashleigh Robinson and Holly Musgrave - began their roles as community care nurse specialists in 2019, and in their first year in the role, supported 552 patients to access end-of-life care sooner - an increase of 36.1 per cent compared to before their roles existed.

Julie Bishop, Palliative Care Co-ordination Centre clinical lead nurse at St Barnabas Hospice said: “The Community Care Nurse Specialist service is a fantastic example of collaboration.

“The organisations share the vision of identifying patients that would benefit from palliative care services as early as possible.”