Vascular access nurse of the year 2019: runners up

We have been working as Clinical Nurse Specialists for Intravenous Therapy at Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare NHS Trust (HRCH) for the past 3 years and were instrumental in setting up the collaborative community intravenous (IV) therapy service.

As part of the national drive to provide safe, effective care closer to home and bridge the gap between hospital and community services, our collaborative IV service has reduced patients' length of stay in hospital, therefore reducing the risk of hospital-acquired infections. We also work closely with five hospital outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy (OPAT) services and two chemotherapy day centres.

Our role is to triage IV patients for suitability for OPAT treatment, confirm capacity within the collaborative community IV therapy service (which comprises the district nursing service, night nursing service, two rapid response teams and an inpatient unit) and manage a caseload of IV patients throughout the course of IV treatment and ensure clinical governance standards are maintained.