L-R: Morag Farquhar (photo credit: Peter Jones) and Karen Murphy, Carer Support Nurse
A new specialist nursing role, developed by a research team led by UEA to support unpaid/family carers, has won a regional NHS Parliamentary Award and been shortlisted for the national award.
This new, award-winning nursing role has won the ‘Nursing and Midwifery’ category of the NHS Parliamentary Awards 2023 for the region. It was developed by a research team led by Prof Morag Farquhar, Professor of Palliative Care Research at UEA’s School of Health Sciences, with the team attending the national award ceremony in London next month.
Unpaid/family carers play a vital role for those they support and care for, creating substantial cost-savings for health and social care, though this can have a negative effect on carers’ own health and wellbeing, and they do not always feel well-prepared for their caring role.
These carers need health care support for both their own health and to help them provide care, yet do not tend to ask for help, with time-strapped healthcare professionals finding it difficult to support them as well as their patients. The dedicated Carer Support Nurse helps overcome this so that carers can get the healthcare, support, and guidance that they need.
The research team worked with more than 100 stakeholders from health, social care and the voluntary sector, national leaders in carer support, and with carers themselves to develop the principles for the Carer Support Nurse role and establish what it should do. With funding for the role from Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Board, they then worked with clinical colleagues at East Coast Community Health Care to put those principles into action – to work out how the Carer Support Nurse should work day-to-day to get the best outcome for carers.
This co-developed role is now being piloted in Great Yarmouth, taking referrals from health, social care and voluntary sector colleagues, and from carers themselves.
The evaluation of this role involves a team spanning UEA, London South Bank University, and the University of Hertfordshire; the team holds expertise in carer support, specialist nursing roles, developing and testing interventions, and getting research into practice (implementation). The evaluation is funded by Health Education England (East of England), supported by NIHR Applied Research Collaboration East of England and UEA Health and Social Care Partners.
RCNi Nursing Awards finalist
In July, the Carer Support Nurse role was also shortlisted as a finalist in the Royal College of Nursing’s (RCN) Nursing Awards, for the Innovations in your Specialty award, as one of 75 finalists from 900+ applications. The winners for these awards will be announced at a ceremony at Liverpool Cathedral on Friday 10 November.
Prof Morag Farquhar said: “Seeing our idea of a Carer Support Nurse role brought to life by Karen and the team at ECCH has been amazing. Then having the role endorsed, both in the feedback from carers who have used the service and from this recognition by the RCNi award, is just fantastic!”
