BJN Awards 2019: nutrition nurse of the year—runners-up

The nutrition nurse team for adults with learning disabilities in Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is a unique dedicated community service caring for adults who have an enteral feeding tube.

Having an enteral tube placed is daunting for any adult, but for someone with a learning disability it is even more so, and the experience of hospital admission can be particularly challenging. Being in an unfamiliar environment such as a hospital, surrounded by unfamiliar faces and routines, encountering different ways of delivering care by hospital staff who may lack understanding of how to approach and deliver care to people with learning disabilities, can be frightening.

We initiated a project to improve the care of patients with learning disabilities who have a gastrostomy tube to help avoid unnecessary hospital admission following initial tube placement. The project involved introducing the use of a small piece of equipment to avoid hospital admission for our patient group—adults patients with learning disabilities who have a gastrostomy tube living in the community.