Rheumatology team settling in to purpose-built new space at Florence Nightingale Community Hospital
Colleagues are settling into their new area at Florence Nightingale Community Hospital (FNCH), which has become a dedicated space for rheumatology patients.
After undergoing an extensive refurbishment, Clinic M at our Derby community hospital site has been transformed into a purpose-built space, which for the first time has allowed all clinical and non-clinical members of the team to be housed in the same area.
The space houses 11 large clinic rooms, as well as improved staff areas, including a rest area and kitchen, as well as a teaching room to provide training to students, as well as a larger open waiting area to allow staff to monitor patients while they wait for their appointments with greater ease.
The teaching element is a particularly important element of the new space, as Merlin Martin, Service Co-ordinator for Rheumatology and Osteoporosis, explained:
"The exposure and experience we're able to give to trainees is key and the space gives us the extra capacity to be able to do this, and to see more patients, which is amazing for us to give this real-world learning to our students.
"Having this facility, with large clean purpose-built clinic rooms allows us to see more patients in a far more suitable environment and plans to potentially expand this space will improve activity and thus reducing waiting times. These changes will help as we grow and from strength to strength; we're very optimistic about what we can do in the future."
The team now also has new, state-of-the-art ultrasound machines, which allows them to provide on-site services and negates the need to make referrals for patients to return to hospital for a second appointment - but also provides another excellent avenue for training for students.
Dr Francis Kynaston-Pearson, Consultant Rheumatologist and Site Lead, says this along with further aspirations have been warmly welcomed by the team:
"We have wanted to expand our footprint for a while now, so it's amazing for the whole team to be in the same space as we've previously felt a little fragmented.
"We've had input from a wide range of colleagues, and it is definitely a much better space to allow us to see and spend time with our patients and I'm sure with our ambitions plans it will continue to improve from here.
"Being able to offer more services in a 'one-stop shop' setting is what we'd like to be able to do more of going forward, and we hope to be able to offer Musculo-skeletal splint and therapies services in the department among other services as we continue to develop."
Florence Nightingale Community Hospital has been chosen to become a Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC), part of a national initiative to offer more diagnostic services in community setting across the country closer to patients' homes. As part of this development, a sensory garden is planned for the site - which the Clinic M rooms will look directly out onto. 
Dr Kynaston-Pearson said this will be an added bonus to the already improved area: "The sensory garden will be a fantastic addition and will further help to enhance the experience of our patients and our staff.
"Having this clinic where it is on the ground floor, and with larger clinic rooms, is beneficial for our patients who may struggle particularly with stairs or other mobility issues, and we continue to work on further improves to the space which I'm sure will be most welcome."