What is district nursing?

District nursing is a branch of the nursing profession consisting of specialist district nurses, community staff nurses, assistant practitioners, health care support workers and administrative staff with a wide range of specialist skills. Our district nurses provide a healthcare service to people across Neath Port Talbot and Swansea.

The district nursing service works proactively to positively promote individual choice, control, dignity, equality, opportunity and participation in order to anticipate, coordinate and deliver care that best meets the needs of patients, their carers and families. This approach helps to enable the individual and their carers to self-manage their condition and remain independent within their own home and local community. The service is committed to the identification and removal of any barriers to ensure that patients with complex care needs are facilitated and managed through a seamless, integrated care pathway.

Key aims of the district nursing service

• To work at all times in accordance with the health board values, providing a service which cares for each other, works together and strives to always improve.

• To support the provision of multi-professional, seamless care which is delivered as close to a patient’s home as possible, thereby reducing avoidable admissions to hospital and facilitating safe and speedier discharges.

• To provide a service that operates 24/7, 365 days a year.

• To provide a high quality, comprehensive and accessible district nursing service to patients aged 18 years and over, who are either temporarily or permanently housebound.

• To work with patients to enable them to remain in their own homes, to maximise their independence, to achieve their health outcomes and improve their quality of life. The fundamental constituent of the service is that it will work in an integrated way with primary care teams, other health and social care professionals and third sector organisations to ensure multi-disciplinary working and patient-centred approaches to reduce duplication and improve continuity of care.

• To support patients in fulfilling their wishes of dying in their preferred place, thereby supporting the delivery of choice at the End of Life (EOL).The choice options will be supported by the use of appropriate end of life care priorities adopted for use at the time of care. Support and enablement will also extend to patients families and carers.

• The service will listen to patients, families and carers endeavouring to ensure they feel their views, concerns or queries are taken seriously. The service will ensure that lessons learnt are shared to improve patient experience and service outcomes.

• The service will promote health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities by offering pertinent advice and information to service users, carers and other professionals, and promoting equitable access.

• The service will provide a care coordinator role for those patients with complex health needs to support them to navigate health and social care pathways.

• Patients under the care of the district nursing service will receive timely reviews of their care and progress, the frequency of this will depend on the level of assessed need.

• Improve the person’s journey with integration of care by forming close working links with primary, secondary, local authority, community and third sector services.

• Appropriately signposting patients and carers into and across health, social care and the voluntary sector.

• Providing an expert education resource for colleagues in the wider multi-disciplinary team including students.

Make a referral to the district nursing team 

Patients, relatives and health care professionals can all make a referral to the district nursing service.

Referrals are made via a single point of access, where an appropriate member of staff will triage the request.

The single point of access contact details are:

Telephone: 01792 343360

Email: SBU.DistrictNursesSPOA@wales.nhs.uk

The district nursing service is not an emergency service. In the event of an emergency please contact 999.