NEWS
Pain relief strategies for patients with dementia in acute settings By Alistair Kleebauer An observational checklist is helping nurses to assess pain in patients with dementia who struggle to speak. Use of the checklist is part of a year-long programme to improve dementia care, funded by the RCN Foundation. Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust introduced the five-point Pain Assessment in Advanced Dementia Scale to assess patients’ breathing, facial expressions, vocalisations, body language and consolability.
If a patient is assessed as being in pain, the nurse can decide on a course of action, such as painkillers or changing the patient’s position. The trust’s practice development matron for dementia care Sara Deakin, together with nurse specialist in pain management Catherine Woods, led the work. Ms Deakin said: ‘Much of the work that has gone into pain assessment tools for patients with dementia has been undertaken in social care and care home settings, rather than in hospitals.’
‘Staff fear raising the alarm on FGM’
NURSING STANDARD
Staff training
BARNEY NEWMAN
Nurses can play a vital role in eradicating female genital mutilation – but some may be afraid to report it for fear of being seen as culturally insensitive, says a senior nurse academic. An estimated 170,000 women in the UK have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), with a further 65,000 girls aged 13 and under thought to be at risk. More than 300 people gathered at King’s College London to discuss the difficulties faced by clinicians in detecting and reporting FGM. Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery lecturer Niall McCrae (pictured) said there was a danger some nurses felt it is ‘not their place’ to report FGM. ‘If you give nurses the message that they should not criticise another culture, they simply will not do anything,’ Dr McCrae said. ‘Nurses need to know there is a law against FGM. It is a child protection issue.’ Since April, it has been mandatory for staff in acute hospitals to record information on a national database about women who have had FGM. This will be shared with agencies including the police.
The trust was one of nine selected to be part of the Transforming Dementia Care in Hospitals programme, which ran for a year until March 2014 and was headed by RCN dementia lead Rachel Thompson. An evaluation of the programme by the Association for Dementia Studies at the University of Worcester was published last week. It concluded that the involvement of senior nursing staff in project teams ‘appeared to be essential in ensuring that changes were relevant, credible and visible’. Nurses presented their projects at an RCN conference in London last week. Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, alongside Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust and Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, were judged to have developed the best work by a panel that included a dementia patient and a carer. Each has been given funding to develop their activities.
At Salford Royal, all staff who come into contact with patients have been trained in dementia through study days and e-learning programmes. The Triangle of Care programme was also introduced, which involves staff consulting patients and their carers on how they would like care delivered. Salford Royal’s lead nurse Janice McGrory said the £1,500 awarded to the trust by the RCN Foundation would be used to introduce a ‘playlist for life’ for patients with dementia. Carers are encouraged to gather meaningful music to play to their loved-one on an iPod. This can help to improve mood and sense of identity. Ms Thompson said: ‘We want the legacy of the programme to be that trusts encourage clinical leaders to support other staff, including non-clinical staff, to deliver improvements in dementia care.’ may 28 :: vol 28 no 39 :: 2014 11
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Pain relief strategies for patients with dementia in acute settings By Alistair Kleebauer An observational checklist is helping nurses to assess pain in patients with dementia who struggle to speak. Use of the checklist is part of a year-long programme to improve dementia care, funded by the RCN Foundation. Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust introduced the five-point Pain Assessment in Advanced Dementia Scale to assess patients’ breathing, facial expressions, vocalisations, body language and consolability.
If a patient is assessed as being in pain, the nurse can decide on a course of action, such as painkillers or changing the patient’s position. The trust’s practice development matron for dementia care Sara Deakin, together with nurse specialist in pain management Catherine Woods, led the work. Ms Deakin said: ‘Much of the work that has gone into pain assessment tools for patients with dementia has been undertaken in social care and care home settings, rather than in hospitals.’
‘Staff fear raising the alarm on FGM’
NURSING STANDARD
Staff training
BARNEY NEWMAN
Nurses can play a vital role in eradicating female genital mutilation – but some may be afraid to report it for fear of being seen as culturally insensitive, says a senior nurse academic. An estimated 170,000 women in the UK have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), with a further 65,000 girls aged 13 and under thought to be at risk. More than 300 people gathered at King’s College London to discuss the difficulties faced by clinicians in detecting and reporting FGM. Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery lecturer Niall McCrae (pictured) said there was a danger some nurses felt it is ‘not their place’ to report FGM. ‘If you give nurses the message that they should not criticise another culture, they simply will not do anything,’ Dr McCrae said. ‘Nurses need to know there is a law against FGM. It is a child protection issue.’ Since April, it has been mandatory for staff in acute hospitals to record information on a national database about women who have had FGM. This will be shared with agencies including the police.
The trust was one of nine selected to be part of the Transforming Dementia Care in Hospitals programme, which ran for a year until March 2014 and was headed by RCN dementia lead Rachel Thompson. An evaluation of the programme by the Association for Dementia Studies at the University of Worcester was published last week. It concluded that the involvement of senior nursing staff in project teams ‘appeared to be essential in ensuring that changes were relevant, credible and visible’. Nurses presented their projects at an RCN conference in London last week. Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, alongside Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust and Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, were judged to have developed the best work by a panel that included a dementia patient and a carer. Each has been given funding to develop their activities.
At Salford Royal, all staff who come into contact with patients have been trained in dementia through study days and e-learning programmes. The Triangle of Care programme was also introduced, which involves staff consulting patients and their carers on how they would like care delivered. Salford Royal’s lead nurse Janice McGrory said the £1,500 awarded to the trust by the RCN Foundation would be used to introduce a ‘playlist for life’ for patients with dementia. Carers are encouraged to gather meaningful music to play to their loved-one on an iPod. This can help to improve mood and sense of identity. Ms Thompson said: ‘We want the legacy of the programme to be that trusts encourage clinical leaders to support other staff, including non-clinical staff, to deliver improvements in dementia care.’ may 28 :: vol 28 no 39 :: 2014 11
Downloaded from RCNi.com by ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 26, 2015. For personal use only. No other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
