Today has been about Community Matrons

One of the latest fads being rolled out by our wonderful government as the answer to all ills in community health care today. This morning, I found myself at a 'frequent flyer operational group', catchy title I thought to myself. Frequent flyer for those of you wondering has nothing to do with building up air miles and getting that free trip to Paris (I wish it was), but is about those patients who spend their lives yoyoing between home and hospital as their condition exacerbates and improves. These might be people with heart disease, chronic lung disease, diabetes or perhaps all three and in this picture they are the people at the top of the pyramid. The idea is, that if some souped up district nurse could patrol around the area visiting these people before they get ill enough to fly frequently to Accident and Emergency then the health service will be saved a good deal of money and the world will be a happier place.

Actually I think the idea of skilled district nurses managing the care of people with this kind of long term condition in conjunction with their GPs so that they stay out of hospital is quite a good one. It is just the way in which such a thing is being done in an attempt to save money. I predict that the community matron will discover many patients whose health care needs are not currently being met, but that the people left doing the rest of the work will still be doing just that. There will likely not be more nurses to care for the rest of the caseload, and those that are left behind will be the less skillful, less qualified. Still I am here to be convinced, and if I was still a District Nurse I might fancy this particular job.

This afternoon I went to find out a new post graduate course for the new community matrons, which I must say is as heavy on practice as it is theory so should be pretty good. As far as I see it, if we are going to get people to do this job, then we best skill them up properly for it.