Nurse outreach service: supporting homeless patients

Nurse outreach service: supporting homeless patients

Earlier this year, South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust worked jointly with Warwickshire County Council to deliver a physical health outreach service for our homeless and temporary housed population
of Warwickshire.

This service consisted of two full time nurse practitioners, each with advanced health assessment and prescribing skills. voluntary, housing, social and NHS organisations the two nurses deliver a
preventative and reactive physical health service either on the streets of Warwickshire or at pre-arranged clinics at a variety of bases. The ‘physical health checks’ have enabled us to identify conditions such as
diabetes and atrial fibrillation, as well as helping us to provide wound management, and supporting people back into permanent accommodation.

Building relationships with people has meant that their physical health needs have improved, and collaborative working with our partners has enabled us to engage with more patients and allowed us to support our patients with other issues such as alcohol and drugs dependency.

We feel it’s really important to be able to work with our clients in a caring and compassionate way and this has enabled us to manage their physical, psychological and social needs and to improve health
outcomes.