Meet the team: Upper GI Clinical Nurse Specialist Team at RDH and QHB
Our Meet the Team series continues, where we speak to teams across our five sites to get to know them a little better and find out their invaluable contributions to the Trust.
We met the Upper Gastrointestinal Clinical Nurse Specialist team (UGI CNS) at Royal Derby Hospital and Queens Hospital Burton, and spoke with Louise Tristram, one of two of the teams lead CNS's, to tell us about the services that they offer.
They are a relatively new in-post and expanding CNS team, which currently comprises of nine colleagues, including specialist nurses, navigators at both RDH and QHB, and admin colleagues who specialise in upper gastrointestinal cancer.
The CNS team are the 'go-to' for these patients, providing support and information, they can discuss diagnosis, treatment options and any concerns that patients or their families may have, whilst also acting as a link between departments during their time under hospital care. Louise explains: "People experience a wide range of emotions when the possibility of cancer is mentioned.
"It can be a frightening and unsettling time. Whatever emotions they are feeling at that very moment, it may be helpful for them to talk to someone who has time to listen and answer any questions they may have, that's what we're here for."
As they grow, the team aims to develop and improve their services to continue to be able to provide exceptional care to our patients and to have a more visible presence within the hospitals and raise awareness of the services that the team offers.
Louise adds that the team is the "centre pin for the whole UGI multi-disciplinary team (MDT)" and can support in many ways to provide patients with guidance and help them to understand and process the clinical information that they have been given.
As the CNS team come from different clinical backgrounds, it means that they can continuously learn from one another and help each other with problem solving. The whole Upper GI MDT team are very supportive of the growing CNS team, which allows for personal development, which in turn provide an improvement to service offered to patients and families.
In what can be an emotional role, Louise also talks about what keeps the team motivated.
She said: "Knowing that what we are doing is for our patients [is what keeps us motivated], it is to give them a service and the support they deserve, at possibly one of the most challenging times in their lives."
The team prides itself on being a pillar of support for their patients by taking a holistic approach to find the best way to help them understand their treatment plans and diagnosis. Louise explains: "Our greatest skill is that we have the ability to listen, to give patients that time when they need it most and be able to explain some of the information they receive in terms that they understand and can take on board." The UGI CNS team provide patients with a main point of contact to help guide them through their treatment plans, and evidences their invaluable contribution to the wider UGI MDT and UHDB.
Pictured L-R: Rhiannon Jones, Anna Bazire-Bosworth, Rachael Walton, Gill Cook, Kerry Flanagan-Nicholls, Louise Tristram, Susanna Joyce, Sue Erye .
Do you work in an area that you’d like to be featured in our Meet the Team series? If so, please contact us with your name, job title, and department/team – at uhdb.communications@nhs.net , and we will get in touch.