Chief Nursing Officer visits Trust

Mrs McLernon had the opportunity to meet with staff from specialist primary care services and hear about the work of the community palliative care team, multi-disciplinary specialist diabetes team and the implementation of insulin pumps for patients with type 1 diabetes.

Other teams including the fracture liaison nurse specialist, older peoples nurse specialists, heart failure and COPD teams also provided information on their services as well as a demonstration on remote tele-health monitoring.

Speaking about the visit Mrs McLernon said she was impressed with the innovative and positive contribution made by the Southern Trust and its teams of Nurses and Professionals Allied to Healthcare; she stated that she was confident that the patients and service users in the Southern Trust are receiving high quality care in and close to their homes.

The Southern Trust’s Director of Older People and Primary Care, Angela McVeigh said: “We were delighted to host this visit and it provided us with the opportunity to share information on some of our specialist community services and recent service developments within the Older People and Primary Care Directorate.”

Angela praised the hard work and commitment of all staff in the delivery of high quality patient centred care. She added: “I am confident that all staff will rise to the challenges presented through Transforming Your Care, the Health Minister’s framework for the future of health and social services in Northern Ireland and the need to care for people with more complex needs at home and in community settings.

“Indeed , most of what is in Transforming Your Care is very familiar to us in the Southern Trust and we are already ahead in delivering the majority of the changes set out in the consultation document.  This visit highlighted examples of this progress.”