Well done Katrina
This shout-out came in complimenting Katrina Roberts' care and support with regards to an end-of-life patient.
"I am a specialist practitioner in community mental health nursing and I have been working with a particular psychiatric patient for the last ten years. In that time his mental health has been our primary concern but we confirmed an advanced cancer diagnosis recently and the patient’s physical health has rapidly deteriorated since then.
'As care coordinator I was tasked to try to pull all the many and various care agencies together to ensure he has the care he requires. I will not go into depth about the process, suffice to say I quickly realised I was out of my depth. I struggled with inpatient services and trying to formulate a community care package proved equally as frustrating for me as I am not familiar with process and I seemed to meet a brick wall at every turn. For me this was incredibly frustrating as it was for the other mental health carers involved in the wider context.'
Then I spoke to Katrina. She was able to not only explain what was needed step-by-step, but she went above and beyond to ensure most of the effort was taken off my shoulders and the correct professionals became involved. For the first time in the emotive process I was reassured finally here was a professional who knew exactly what was needed for the patient and she kept me in the loop constantly. Not only that, she was extremely empathetic to me and even went as far as to ring me last thing on Friday evening to see if I was ok.'
'I feel you should be aware you have a fantastic practitioner who went above and beyond for my patient. And for a colleague - she is warm, genuine and above all she put my patient at the core of all her interventions not just clinically.'
'I am not easily impressed, but Katrina has impressed me. This is, I feel, a great example of interagency working at its best. Thank you Katrina.'
From an email sent to Katrina's line manager by Michael Mcguinness