We caught up with the Nurse/Nursing Team of the Year Award shortlist ahead of this year’s General Practice Awards ceremony to be held on 8 December in London.
The fourth entry under the spotlight from this year’s shortlist of seven is the Primary Care Sheffield Darnall nursing team.
One of the key clinical areas targeted by the nursing team to improve public health in the local community is cervical screening. In their efforts to increase uptake, the team sought a low-impact approach for the practice but one that would target the South Asian population, as this accounted for the highest number of non-attenders.
The team worked with the knowledge that colleagues – especially in reception – were already under tremendous pressure, so increasing traffic on the telephone was not an option.
Entry highlights
Enlisting the help of a behavioural science team brought skills to the Darnall nursing team that they were able to use and put into practice for the patient population.
Working with the practice’s in-house interpreters also provided the team with extra knowledge around South Asian culture, and from this the nurses were able to tailor discussions and educational information.
Changes were made to the practice recall letter, including translation into Urdu and Bengali. The team also set up a weekly drop-in clinic, working with social prescribers to spread the word. Education and discussions were offered at the drop-ins to build trust and provide support and reassurance.
Any woman due a smear was able to attend the drop-in, and the team specifically targeted those on the non-responder register. Uptake was initially slow but awareness within the community began to increase through word of mouth, text messaging and leaflets. Soon, at least four women were attending the drop-ins each week.
As a result, non-attender uptake was increased by 24 per cent and overall uptake was up by 32.7 percent in the first year. This was followed by a 10 percent overall increase in the following year. Out of the non-attenders, 10 percent were referred to colposcopy.
The practice met its QOF target in Dec 2022 for cervical screening, partly due to this work. In previous years, QOF cervical screening targets had not been met.
What they said
A social prescribing team member said: ‘The drop-in is great for patients – they know an interpreter will be available if needed and can turn up any time in a two-hour period. I’m always promoting it to patients.’
Last year, Wales-based general practice nurse Janette Morgan won the Practice Nursing Award after demonstrating her impact on chronic disease management in her locality.
