Setting standards for specialist practice

Using motivational interviewing to improve health outcomes

Exercise is found by many researchers to have a positive effect on mood, self-esteem and other aspects of mental health, as well as a high impact on physical health and therefore the risk of long-term...

Give veteran patients the support they need

There are an estimated 2.4 million veterans living in England, and taking into account their families too, there is a considerable Armed Forces community living under our care. The healthcare needs of...

Type 2 diabetes and depression: what is the link?

But what about the mental aspects of T2D? Adams et al (2022) cite evidence showing that depression is more common among individuals with T2D than those without T2D, and that insulin therapy is...

Changing mindsets to see the benefits of hosting students

We work very closely with Northumbria University and Health Education England and their Effective Learning Environments Team to ensure that we can offer the maximum number of student placements. We...

Making self-harm everyone's business: a consideration of the new national guideline

Compiling accurate statistics about self-harm incidence is challenging as it is often a hidden behaviour, with only a small minority of patients who have self-harmed being seen in a hospital setting....

The importance of robust education in general practice

Robust education, teaching, supervising and assessing learners are all essential elements to consider in relation to patient safety – but also to the retention of the nursing workforce. If a nurse is...

How to recognise and support someone with an eating disorder

The UK's leading charity for eating disorders, Beat, estimates that there are about 1.25 million people in the UK with an eating disorder, and 75% of those are women (Beat, 2022). They also commented...

Meeting the challenge of insulin resistance in general practice

Insulin resistance is a reduced response to the hormone insulin (Bikman, 2020: 6), with insulin resistance a key component of metabolic syndrome (Gallagher and LeRoith, 2020). In metabolic syndrome...

New NICE draft guidance encourages less use of SSRIs for mild to moderate depression

This is an important move and on a personal level, I am in agreement, since experiencing the iatrogenic harms of medications I did not need. I was prescribed quetiapine by a community psychiatrist...

Lack of political recognition for nurses working in general practice

Given that the first time nurses and GPs heard about the acceleration of the programme was when the Prime Minister announced it in the media on the evening of Sunday 12 December, the response in...

Practice nursing: saving the Cinderella service

‘It's no surprise that many of my colleagues tell me they feel undervalued and invisible.’ .