Presentation by Jenny Richardson

1. Jenny Richardson
jenny.richardson@hrch.nhs.uk
Tel: 07792015267

2. MS Nurse Specialist for 2 years.
Previously District nursing
Currently working at Richmond
Rehabilitation Unit within community
rehab team.
Team consists of Neuro physiotherapists,
SLT, Psychologist, rehab assistants, OT’s,
PD nurse, MS nurses.

3. Group of us (Neuro physio, Neuro SLT,
Neuro psychologist) identified that
unpaid carers were ‘slipping through the
net’.
Feeling unappreciated and not
recognised as being important
Feeling unsupported

4. Focus group
Invited unpaid carers (approx 30 invites)
8 people attended
Initially not just MS
Only MS attended
PALS representative present
With consent session was recorded
Asked them to tell us what we did well as
a team and areas we could improve on

5. They didn’t want to be known as carers.
They still wanted to be recognised as
‘wife’, ‘husband’, ‘daughter’ etc
They wanted the same training that was
offered to formal carers attached to
agencies (manual handling, Basic life
support etc)
They wanted to know who to contact
when (ie, catheter blocked at 3 am,
patient fallen)

6. Support group
Better communication between
healthcare professionals so that they
didn’t have to keep repeating themselves
(hospital/GP)

7. Agreed to run 6 monthly support group
at RRU on a Monday morning
After discussion decided not to provide
training ourselves but have found this
through other providers such as
Richmond carers centre, INS and age UK
Created an information leaflet with ‘who
to call and when’ information

8. Only had 2 sessions so far
Positive feedback via E mail and face to
face
Relationships established between focus
group and they see each other
independently