New directions in dermatology

Published: 15 June 2011

New directions in dermatology was the theme of our most recent successful Dermatology nursing conference

Paula Oliver reports

We understand that those of you who are non-specialists in dermatology particularly in primary care are seeing more and more patients through the surgery doors.

In England and Wales 24 per cent (12.9 million) of the population sought advice from their GP with a skin problem, with most common reasons being skin infection and eczema (Schofield et al, 2009). Therefore we all need to take an active interest in taking care of our patients skin and advise them accordingly.

Acting Chair Anna Bianconi-Moore opened the day and spoke of the challenges that face us all in dermatological nursing and acknowledged how important nurses are in educating and supporting patients with skin disease.

In line with the conference title Susan Maguire, Professional Officer of the British Dermatological Nursing Group (BDNG), spoke of the impact of government changes in dermatology services.

Nicki Ball, Dermatology Nurse Specialist at Bristol Community Health, demonstrated how effective a primary care dermatology service can work and the challenges her and her team have jumped over- she clearly has passion in her role!

Anna then talked us through the importance of skin assessment to aid diagnosis - something that we all need to consider.

 Saskia Reeken gave us an overview of pre-cancerous lesions on the skin and skin cancers. Saskia acts as a real advocate for her patients and demonstrated how valuable the Clinical Nurse Specialist skin cancer role is to patients.

 After our busy lunch and interacting with the exhibitors, Angela Steen took us through topical therapies in dermatology – something that we all know is sometimes difficult for patients as they are often time consuming to apply.

A thought-provoking session on skin infections and infestations followed - lots of excellent clinical images, which ended up making many of us itch.

Fiona Reid, a Dermatology Nurse Consultant from Leeds, gave us a very well received session on acne vulgaris and how to manage this condition. If only as nurses we could be more proactive at treating this.

I presented on nurse prescribing and discussed work by Courtenay et al (2010) which explored the views of dermatology patients and their families and concludes that nurse prescribing increases the efficiency of dermatology services as patients are actively involved in prescribing decisions leading to concordance to treatment regimes.

Our final speaker Lisa McGovern, Dermatology CNS, talked us through surviving the tender process - something that was very close to her heart as Lisa had lived this experience. A very stressful time with a positive end.

Thanks to all the delegates that attended and we appreciate it is difficult to get study leave in these times. It is extremely hard to get funding these days and time off work is, unfortunately, most definitely a challenge.

 The committee are currently in discussion on next year’s event in 2012, Olympic year(!) so watch this space in our communications to you and we hope to see you there.

References

Courtenay et al (2010), Patients views of Nurse Prescribing:effects on care, concordance and medicine taking, British Journal of Dermatology
 
Schofield J, Grindley D and Williams H (2009), available here