Laura Sherrey
Northumbria Healthcare.
Oral Nutrition Support Team
I work as part of the oral nutrition support team for Northumbria Healthcare. This role is based in the community with a mix of outpatient work, care homes and domiciliary visits. A large part of this role involves ensuring appropriate prescribing of oral nutritional supplements. This requires a team approach and we work closely with the GPs, community nurses and pharmacists. This ultimately helps cost saving within the NHS and supports optimum patient care. We are also involved in training staff within care homes on screening and appropriate referring, supporting best practice.
This role can be very diverse as it involves a wide range of patients with different clinical conditions within the community setting. This can range from neurological conditions to oncology to gastrointestinal disorders, amongst others. We are very lucky that Northumberland is so beautiful and we get to travel the region far and wide to see patients. In the community, you really get to make a difference to patients lives and establish rapport with them which is often rewarding.
I first moved to Newcastle when I graduated 10 years ago for my first band 5 post, and now consider myself an honorary Geordie! We are very lucky in the North East to have so many outstanding hospitals in the region. This makes it very exciting to work here with a multitude of opportunities and experiences. I love Newcastle - it is a great place to live and work. It is a small but exciting city and with some of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet.