The community teams provide a range of services including district nursing, health visiting, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and chiropody and community midwifery/maternity services.
Community Nursing services are based in GP practices, the health centres or community hospitals. The service aims to provide nursing care to patients in their own homes. Examples of the care that the community nurses provide includes supporting patients discharged from hospital, palliative care for dying patients and caring for patients with serious disabilities. The community nursing teams work closely with other agencies such as social services and the community hospitals.
Health visitors are usually based in GP practices they support the under fives and their families and elderly patients. Their role includes provision of a screening service, health promotional programmes such as smoking cessation, work with the elderly and other groups such as teenagers. Their work brings them in close contact with Paediatricians, social services, voluntary agencies and the Child Health service.
A team of administrative staff play a valuable role in supporting health workers to provide an effective service to the patients and clients. The role of administrative staff includes ordering of equipment for use in patient's homes, inviting patients to attend clinics and clerical support to various staff groups.
The administrative staff are based in the health centres in the West Gloucestershire area.The centres accommodate a range of activities including baby clinics, family planning, speech and language therapy, chiropody and physiotherapy.
There are approximately:
* 160 District Nurses
* 80 Health Visitors
There are also supporting services provided by:
* 30 School Nurses
* 20 Midwives
* 15 Physiotherapists
* 20 Occupational Therapists
* 20 Podiatrists (Chiropodists)
In addition, there are many specialised services e.g.Speech and Language Therapy, Wheelchair services, which support primary and community care services.
