Wye Valley NHS Trust

Service Overview The service aims to actively promote bladder and bowel continence.  We are able to identify and assess patients, give advice and best management for their incontinence needs, helping to improve their quality of life.  The service provides clinical assessment, advice and support for patients and their families.  We work closely with GPs, district nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, the dementia team, mental health, social services and care agencies to ensure a seamless service is provided.  We provide teaching to health and social care professionals.  Accessibility/Acceptability The service is offered to people four years and older who are registered with…

Nicki Lloyd - Health Care Support Worker (HCSW) My name is Nicki Lloyd and I am a Health Care Support Worker on Lugg Ward at Hereford County Hospital. My job role involves assisting the nurses with the care of patients on the ward. This can involve personal care, changing beds, taking clinical observations, testing blood sugar levels, emptying catheters, taking ECGs and taking blood samples. I decided to become a HCSW with Wye Valley Trust as I had been working in Adult Social Care in a variety of rolls for about 16 years, and wanted to gain new skills which…

Family/Friends - Help us to get your loved ones home from hospital

Refer yourself here for maternity care If you are newly pregnant, you can now enter your details on a secure website (see link below) that will send a referral straight to our community midwifery team. You don’t need to contact your GP or make an appointment with them – we will tell them about your pregnancy. However, if you have any urgent concerns about your health during early pregnancy, please do contact your GP for advice. The best time to fill in the online form is when you are 6 to 7 weeks pregnant. We will then phone you to arrange…

Some vaccines, such as the inactivated seasonal flu vaccine, COVID-19 vaccine, and the whooping cough vaccine, are recommended during pregnancy to protect the health of you and your baby.  Find out more below and visit NHS vaccines during pregnancy website page. Seasonal flu vaccine Pregnant women are more at risk from seasonal flu, so it is recommended you should have this vaccine.  It is safe to have at any stage in pregnancy and your community midwife will advise you on when you can obtain it at your GP surgery.  COVID-19 vaccine If you're pregnant, or think you might be, it's…

An instrumental birth refers to the use of either forceps or ventouse (suction cup). An instrumental birth happens for 1 in every 8 births.   Forceps are metal instruments which fit together around your baby’s head to speed up the process of baby being born during the pushing phase.  The doctor will pull the forceps as you also push down during a contraction. Ventouse is a suction cup which is placed on baby’s head firmly and also pulled by the doctor while you push.   The choice of instrument will depend on the situation, how many weeks pregnant you are…

Pre-eclampsia usually isn’t diagnosed until at least 20 weeks of pregnancy, but it actually starts early on.  If the blood vessels in your placenta don’t embed properly into your womb, it means the blood flow from the placenta to baby isn’t as optimal as usual.  Your body tries to compensate for this by tightening all the blood vessels in your body, in order to send more blood to your baby.  This in turn increases your blood pressure and eventually the blood vessel walls will start to become damaged, creating small holes.  These holes let some fluids from your bloodstream leak…

The majority of people will experience some nausea and vomiting during pregnancy – around 80%.  Although it is often described as morning sickness, the symptoms can present at any time of day.  For most people, the nausea and sickness can be managed with changes to their diet and lifestyle and doesn’t impede greatly on their daily activities and will improve at around 12-20 weeks of pregnancy.  However, for some women, approximately 3%, the nausea and vomiting will be so severe that it affects their health and wellbeing, they cannot continue with their normal routine and they need hospital treatment –…

  Pain toolkit Pain Management PlanA Great practical book about living with long term pain. Buy it from Amazon or the publisher’s site. Also available from the pain self-management service where you can work through it with support from a clinician. Pain Concern A UK based charity to help people with persistent pain. Good magazine, Pain Matters   Phone: 0300 123 0789 Wonderful online radio programme about pain "Airing Pain" Let’s Talk    Local courses and one-to-one help for depression, anxiety, insomnia etc. 6-week Manage Fibromyalgia and Chronic fatigue course. Refer yourself online or by phone. Phone: 0800 0732200 Samaritans   …

We have introduced a new maternity electronic patient record system.  This means that we no longer use paper forms for recording information about your maternity care. It only applies to the maternity service, which is from your first point of contact with one of our midwives through to when you are discharged from the care of your midwife to a health visitor.  Our midwifery team now record this information on the new electronic system online on a computer or iPad.   This means that we can access information about your maternity care in one place, safely and securely at all…