MS Day: How can Nurses Help?

UCL/Barts research day presentations


MS Nurse Team: Q & A
Comment:
On behalf of my brother, big thank you to Freya from Royal London and all the MS nurses, providing an extremely amazing support every day and being there throughout everything.

This month MS Trust newsletter mentioned that the average ratio of patients to a nurse should be 500/1. However it is currently approaching - 800/1. In Ealing, which is the biggest borough in London with MS patients, the ratio is up to nearly 1000/1 and it is getting worse. The relationship and ratio between nurses and patients in the NHNN is great, but I do not think it is reflected on the country at all. MS Trust has done an awful lot of work doing research on numbers and looking at the caseloads. I think it is going to be an ongoing challenge. A lot of it will be on developing the services but also on having the support to develop the services. It is a common goal for community or hospital nurses to be able to help you to manage MS as well as possible.

Are the MS nurses have been or will be affected by the governmental cuts?
Yes, we are affected by the government cuts. It is always difficult to balance and also know how much government will give us. The MS trust has recently done a research to see how many patients we should have per nurse and they also have done a bit of work on the impact that we have on you. Hopefully we will be able to use this evidence to show the government how essential MS nurses are to these services. The new NICE guideline that comes out in October and the draft guideline definitely mentions how important MS nurse are for the team. We have to hope it will be a positive move forward. We always rely on 2 charities and they are our most avid supporters, and they fight really hard to make sure that there are always MS nurses around.

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