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Lorraine Bishop’s Blog: Senior Children’s Community Nurse

Lorraine Bishop is a Senior Children’s Community Nurse (CNN) for Solent NHS Trust, covering Portsmouth and the South East Hampshire. She helps provide care to children and young people with chronic or complex health conditions in their own homes. 

What’s your background?

I’ve worked in the community since qualifying in 2010. As a student nurse I loved my placements with the Children’s Community Nursing Team so I knew straight away that this was the career for me. 

On a typical day

I love the unpredictability of working with children as no two visits are ever the same. I could be seeing patients to take bloods, dress a wound, teaching parents or doing injections. The list goes on! 

A great example of this would be when I visited a child that was being treated for an oncology condition. When I arrived at their home they were playing in a Wendy House and did not want to come in for their bloods, so I decided to go to them! I went into the Wendy House and we did the treatment from there, which the child (and mum) thought was brilliant.  It’s a huge privilege to be able to provide personalised care to children in their own home and make them feel as comfortable as possible. 

How I’ve made a difference as a nurse

Working in the community has given me a host of memorable experiences; however there is one particular moment which gave me a real sense of pride.  

A few years ago, I was involved in a safeguarding case where the patient had a long term degenerative disease and was being neglected by his parent/carer. I had the patient admitted to hospital on a Friday afternoon after many attempts to gain his consent to do so. The following day he had a respiratory arrest and had to be resuscitated. The consultant involved in his care advised me, that if he had not been in hospital he was sure this child wouldn’t have pulled through  

I am incredibly proud of the care I provided for this patient and as a result, I received a reward from Solent NHS Trust for my hard work. There was a Learning Review into this case by the local Safeguarding Children’s Board and the report stated my tenacity and professionalism saved his life.  

It’s moments like these where I know that my work makes a real difference and to be recognised by the trust for my efforts made it even more special.  

What would you say to someone interested in a career in community nursing?

If you are newly qualified and are thinking of starting your career in community care, my advice would be to just go for it. Community nursing is a very independent role with lots of clinical decisions to be made on your own. As a newly qualified nurse this can be quite daunting to start with but it’s so rewarding!