Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London

Adult community nursing team

The district nursing service provides adult community nursing care in the home to adults over the age of 16 who are housebound and unable to care for themselves.

Where possible, we help and support patients towards independence in managing their care needs and long term conditions. We aim to prevent unnecessary admissions to hospital and facilitate early discharge.

Our service is available 8am-8pm, 365 days a year. 

Our teams of nurses are based in nine different localities across Lambeth and Southwark. They are led by district nursing sisters and charge nurses who work closely with GP practices. Community matrons sit within the district nursing teams and manage patients with long-term conditions to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions.

Our service provides:

• Assessment and case management
• Management of long-term conditions
• Wound management
• Leg ulcer clinics (in Southwark)
• Palliative and end-of-life care
• Nurse prescribing
• Medicines management
• Education and support for self care
• Bladder and bowel management

Guy’s and St Thomas’ is the first NHS organization in England to test a new method of community nursing which uses key elements of the Dutch nursing model known as Buurtzorg.