Community Placements

Georgios graduated as a Registered General Nurse in Athens, Greece, before moving to Cardiff in 2014 and completing his master's degree in Advanced Practice Education for Health Professionals. His clinical experience is in acute medical admission wards and emergency departments across Greece and the UK. He is a lecturer in nursing and also a doctoral candidate at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. His teaching activities include nursing skills and procedures. Caroline Dickson has been a Registered Nurse since 1985 and has considerable experience within community nursing, particularly district nursing, general practice nursing and practice development. In 2003 she moved into higher education at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh where she is Senior Lecturer in Community Nursing and Programme Leader for the PGDip Person-centred Practice (District Nursing). She also contributes to the undergraduate nursing programme from a community nursing perspective and is an Honorary District Nurse in NHS Borders and in clinical practice one day per month. Caroline is currently Chair of the RCN District Nursing Forum and a member of the Association of District Nurse Educators. She was a member of the Steering Group that developed the Queen's Nursing Institute voluntary standards for District Nurse Education and Practice (2016). She also been a member of a variety of national groups developing district and community nursing services in Scotland and the UK. She is a member of the International Practice Development Collaborative. She regularly reviews papers for a number of journals including the British Journal of Community Nursing, International Practice Development Journal, Journal of Nursing Management and the International Journal of Older People, and she has held External Examiner positions in various universities throughout the UK.

Getting there 1. Preparing for community placement 2. Uniform 3. Absence policy 4. Professionalism 4.1 The NMC Code 4.2 Raising concerns 4.3 Consent and confidentiality 4.4 Social media 5. Person-centred practice Settling there 6. Induction / first day 7. Key colleagues you will be working with 7.1 Health Visitors 7.2 District Nurses 7.3 General Practice Nurses 7.4 School Nurses 8. Getting to know your community 9. Working with your mentor Being there 10. Home visiting 11. Interpersonal skills 12. Communicating with colleagues 12.1 Nursing handover 12.2 Answering the telephone 13. Health and safety 13.1 Infection control 13.2 Manual handling 13.3 Lone working 14. Community emergencies 14.1 Falls in the community 14.2 Infections and the risk of sepsis 14.3 Basic Life Support (BLS) 14.4 Violence and aggression 15. Documentation 15.1 Incident reporting 15.2 Yellow Card Scheme 16. Caring and supporting people across the lifespan 16.1 Childhood development 16.2 Long-term conditions 16.3 Palliative and end of life care 16.4 Following a death in the community 17. Opportunities for learning 17.1 Practice assessment documentation Moving on from there 18. Reflection 19. Completion of your practice assessment documentation 20. Transferable skills 21. Further reading

Great little guide 'This has really helped me in my community placement, I no longer have to carry my big community books with me as this has all the basic information needed to have a quick reference.' Amazon reviewer