By Mark Charlton | Head of Professional Development, MS Trust
MS is a complex diagnosis with an often fluctuating, variable and unpredictable pathway. This presents unique challenges to the health and social care professionals who work with people living MS. The impact of this complexity and uncertainty cannot be overstated.
MS specialist staff must keep up-to-date with the changing evidence-base, best practice, statutory guidance and therapies available to people living with MS. At present we are able to provide a limited number of study days and if more money were available, we would be in a stronger position to respond to new research findings. For example, research this year has shown that anxiety and depression are highly prevalent in people with MS, indicating that their mental health needs could be better addressed. The MS Trust would like to be able to develop an evidence-based master class in order to ensure that staff are better placed to address the mental health needs of people living with MS.
A relatively new factor that further complicates the support offered to people with MS is the creation of ‘neurological specialist’ services and posts. Where previously an MS specialist was available to people living with MS, they have in some instances been replaced with a ‘neurological specialist’ whose caseload is much wider than MS and incorporates other neurological conditions (Brain Injury, Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s, Epilepsy, Huntington’s Disease, MND, Spina Bifida, etc). The MS Trust already receives requests from some of these neurological specialists to attend some of the MS specialist master classes and study days but at present we are unable to meet this need.
Increased funding would allow us to develop and deliver a 3 day development module to ensure that neuro-specialist staff have the skills and knowledge required to support people living with MS and recognise their unique requirements amongst a wide and varied caseload.
We are grateful for your continued interest in our work to support MS specialist nurses and we look forward to updating you again soon.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
