Elli Rushton talks Practice Education

Elli Rushton heads up the Naomi House & Jacksplace practice education team; the largest dedicated hospice practice education team in the UK. The team comprises of five highly skilled nurses, tasked with continually developing the clinical skills and knowledge of our nursing and care teams.
 

Elli has been nursing for 40 years in a variety of disciplines, including working with child refugees in Kosovo, Vietnam and Cambodia.

While her current role may be quite different, she enjoys the challenge of ensuring the team at the hospices are delivering first rate care to the region’s life limited and life threatened children and young adults.

Naomi House & Jacksplace has the largest dedicated hospice practice education team in the UK and Elli believes this commitment to training, development and clinical excellence has been key to the charity’s growth and the quality of care offered to local families.

Elli said:

“Children are coming to us with increasingly complex medical conditions and as a team we have had to stay ahead of these changes. The care we deliver now is unrecognisable compared to what we were doing 21 years ago. We have trained our nurses and care team in intravenous medications, peritoneal dialysis, working with children who are invasively ventilated and complex symptom management. Often our job is simply about giving our teams confidence. We only employ the best nurses but sometimes we will ask them to do things that weren’t part of their day to day routine previously. Guiding and supporting them as they master these procedures is hugely rewarding, especially when you know the difference it can make in the life of a child, young adult or family.

“Another important element of our work is fostering relationships with local healthcare providers, particularly University Hospital Southampton with whom we have a number of shared posts. As experts in our field, there is much we can offer partners across our region and further afield.

We are often invited to present our work at national and international conferences, cementing our position as a leading hospice and one that is innovative, skilled and happy to share best practice.

“Having such a large, skilled and dedicated practice education team means we are
continually innovating, developing new methods of delivering care and refining clinical skills. This doesn’t just benefit the children and young adults at Naomi House & Jacksplace, but the healthcare sector more widely.”