Community Nursing

District Nurses

District Nurses play a crucial role in the primary health care team. They visit people in their own homes or in residential care homes, providing care for patients and supporting family members.

As well as providing direct patient care, district nurses also have a teaching role, working with patients to enable them to care for themselves or with family members teaching them how to give care to their relatives.

District Nurses play a vital role in keeping hospital admissions and readmissions to a minimum and ensuring that patients can return to their own homes as soon as possible.

District Nurses assess the health care needs of patients and families, monitor the quality of care they're receiving and are professionally accountable for delivery of care. They work with patients of any age, but often many of them are elderly, while others may have been recently discharged from hospital, be terminally ill or have physical disabilities.

District nurses may visit patients every day or more than once a day, offering help, advice and support. They liaise with other groups, such as the social services, voluntary agencies and other NHS organisations and help to provide and co-ordinate a wide range of care services.

Community Midwifery

Midwives are grouped into teams based in community hospitals or appropriate local settings. All midwives are linked to a GP practice and are responsible for managing their own caseload. Women with straightforward pregnancies will receive all their antenatal care from their midwife or GP locally.

Due to the rural nature of parts of Oxfordshire, it depends where the community team is based as to whether they are able to support women during their birthing experience. If for geographical reasons this is not an option, women can choose to use a community hospital unit or plan to give birth at home.

Community teams are based at Abingdon, Bicester, Chipping Norton, Didcot, Oxford City, Wallingford, Wantage, Witney, Carterton and at Thame.

The Community Midwifery service is managed by the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust.