My Working Day:Practice nurses are set to play a huge role in the future of the primary care strategy, according to Thurles-based practice nurse Eileen Brennan
I'm a practice nurse attached to a general practice in Thurles. There are 1,200 practice nurses in Ireland. Although we work in primary care, we differ from public health nurses as we are privately employed by GPs.
The role of the practice nurse has been around for a long time but it has evolved significantly in the past 10 years. Now we have a diverse remit including health promotion, dressings, recording ECGs, eye testing, ear syringing, childhood and travel vaccines, lifestyle advice, taking blood and nurse-led clinics - everything from birth to old age.
No one day is the same and there is always someone in trouble, someone in need.
Most GPs like the idea of practice nurses because it frees them up to deal with disease and the management of disease.
Generally after a consultation with the GP, the patient can be referred to the practice nurse for additional consultation. A lower fee usually applies.
Having a practice nurse speeds up appointment times and makes a practice more organised. Eventually, nurses will be prescribing as well.
I have been in nursing for 25 years. I worked in intensive care in St Vincent's and A&E in the Royal Victoria in Belfast. Most recently I was clinical nurse manager in the A&E department in the Mercy University Hospital in Cork. I used to travel down to Cork from Thurles but three little girls under eight put a stop to my gallop.
I started working in general practice in 1998 and I am now participating in the first postgraduate diploma in practice nursing at NUI, Galway. It is the first stage of a masters programme.
It's so important to keep up with new developments in research and bring evidence-based research off the shelves and into practice.
Presentations to a general practice are often similar to the minor presentations in an A&E department. There is also a huge emphasis on health promotion in the role.
In the mid-western region practice nurses have been playing a huge role in the Irish Cervical Screening Programme's (ICSP) pilot project. The project offers free cervical smears to women aged 25-60. Often women have smear tests after the birth of their last baby and once they are out of the system they don't attend for further screening. The beauty of the programme when it is rolled out nationally is that it will prevent women from dropping out. Like BreastCheck they will be written to and reminded of their next screening.
In conversation with Fiona Tyrrell