The role of the HIV community specialist nurse has been a vital one since the start of the epidemic over 30 years ago. The community nurse has evolved and developed from teams of nurses who managed and supported terminal and palliative care at home to monitoring adherence and side-effects to today where they manage an ageing cohort with long term health and complex needs. However, the role is at risk and teams have been cut or lost completely. Evidence to support the effectiveness of the HIV community specialist nurse has mostly been anecdotal and there has been very little research and audit to support it. Over the past few years it has become clear that, although the community nurse role was highly regarded and deemed vital in areas of high prevalence and HIV complexity, we needed a model of care, something that those who develop HIV care services can use to support and commission community HIV nurses.
A small group of community HIV nurse specialists came together to work on this document and it reflects the scope of their work and provides case studies to evidence real life scenarios. the document has been supported by the NHS England HIV Clinical Reference Group, endorsed by the British HIV Association (BHIVA) and provisionally endorsed by the RCN (pending revisions).
The model will be evaluated and developed as the role changes and the first version can be downloaded below. If you have any queries please contact shaun.watson@nhs.net.
Click here to download the document.
