For immediate release

17 January 2017

Roving nurse makes difference to the homeless

Gabrielle Bleidorn is one of CNWL's Peripatetic Health & Wellbeing Nurses working with homeless and hostel clients in Kensington & Chelsea. Gabrielle has a wealth of experience to draw on being a registered RGN for 18 years, and additionally a qualified midwife and a qualified teacher/university lecturer. Gabrielle is also a force of nature whose compassionate persistence gives her the opportunity to change health outcomes for clients, as she goes enthusiastically knocking on the doors of hostels and sets up clinics in churches to encourage people to engage with health checks and appointments.

The aim of the peripatetic nurse service is to reduce health inequalities and improve health outcomes for the homeless and hostel residents placed within Kensington and Chelsea. Gabrielle sees about 220 to 230 people a quarter - nearly a thousand in the year. It's tackling Health Inequalities and it's worth remembering that the average life span on the street is 47 years of age for a man (43 years/women); two thirds of the homeless population have a mental illness, and at least 160 homeless people died on London streets last year alone.

Gabrielle goes round the hostels and meets clients for health checks - BP, BMI, medications, wound care and she will refer people to GPs, dentists, sexual health, mental health, addiction services and so forth. Additionally Gabrielle writes comprehensive letters to GPs for a range of referrals - like chest x-rays or hospital endoscopy services etc. Only last week she saw a man with an injured knee and from the swelling and her clinical observations - like falling BP, pallid look - she feared a DVT (blood clot in the leg) so an ambulance was called, it was confirmed later as a DVT and her quick response may have saved the gentleman's life. Recently she also suspected one of her clients had symptoms relating to Parkinson's disease and got them quickly referred, it was later confirmed as Parkinson's with an MRI scan and help was sorted for the individual to understand, medicate and cope with the illness.

Often clients do not have a GP so Gabrielle will take it upon herself to find and register clients with a GP (she recently met someone who hadn't had a GP for at least 12 years). Gabrielle has found it really beneficial to work and book clients in with Groundswell, another voluntary group who provide Peer Advocate support to take people to their health appointments, as many people don't always keep them; trust being very hard to establish. This can be hard for the general public to understand and Gabrielle explains, "Well, these people are not used to people caring about them and therefore do not care about themselves, they often lack a sense of self-worth, suddenly they are in a position where they realise that I, as a nurse and human being deeply care and am going to take time and effort to see them each week , they are then faced with the concept that "if I care about them they have to care for themselves too" and start engaging with their appointments and start looking after themselves a bit more."

Street homeless are often overstayers or other unlawful residents so are only entitled to emergency treatment and Gabrielle will call ambulances and get people to A&E or direct clients to voluntary homeless GP services if required. Gabrielle is also able to refer these particular clients to lots of voluntary organisations like Vision Care who provide a free sight service for homeless people. Gabrielle believes in being "well equipped" and carries not only her medical equipment around in her nursing trolley but also information lists of services available for clients mapping where free food shelters are and other leaflets giving useful advice and health information.

Gabrielle is like a strong magnetic force holding these very fragile people in orbit around the service, engaging so many people and doing much good. She tells of an elderly man who would walk 2.5 hours each day just to get to the drop in centre at the church where the nurse service worked from (where there is food and showers) but he didn't appear for a few days. Fearing the worst Gabrielle rang the community police to report him as a missing person after exhausting all other avenues and leads such as known acquaintances local GP, local hospitals etc. The community police broke into his room and thankfully he wasn't there. A few days later a staff member saw him walking down the road and called Gabrielle who ran down after him. We brought him back into the church where I was able to clinically assess him and chat with him; he couldn't remember where he'd been; he normally wears a catheter and that day his BP was very low so Gabrielle figured it was a UTI and a form of delirium; from the cloudy appearance of the urine in the catheter bag and treatment was immediately sorted for him.

She tells me of a wealthy young person who had a successful business, house and fell to an extreme form of anaphylactic shock; she was in Intensive care ten times in ten months and when discharged her skin was mottled and stretched. The young woman became anorexic as a result of her body image (and with the worry of any food triggering the reaction) and then bulimic and then body dysmorphic. She also lost everything - business, money, relationship and home and ended up living in a hostel. She had a hospital appointment to investigate the allergy for six months later and told Gabriele "in six months I'll be dead." Gabrielle hit the phones and after long calls got her an allergy clinic appointment referral for the following day, counselling session for her dysmorphia and eating disorder help and services. Gabrielle also plunged into research and found her therapy and Ultra Violet treatment to help her skin colour to discuss with the medical consultants.

She helped an elderly woman with cognitive impairment, already socially isolated, but who one day couldn't remember where she lived; in this bewildered state she lived on the streets where she was mugged for her jewellery and lived in the same clothes until she came across Nurse Gabrielle Bleidorn who managed to get urgent mental health and social care support and a referral to the Memory clinic. Throughout our conversation she says, "it was really, really sad", and she says this three or four times, and it is; these things are almost hidden in plain view. But there's nothing sad about this service at all, it's a mark of humanitarianism and only works through the skills and compassion of such a hardworking and dedicated nurse.

Gabrielle explains her joy at the funding given by the commissioners for another recent posting of a new nurse colleague, Colleen Daniel, for the peripatetic nurse service covering North Westminster. Gabrielle Bleidorn and Colleen Daniel were recent prize winners in their division for outstanding compassionate work; no wonder! Gabrielle goes on to say that it is her "hope as she feels it is such a beneficial service, to eventually see the peripatetic nurse role across every London borough".

I come away partially stunned by it all, moved more than I show and more than anything else hugely impressed.

Editors' notes

Attached pictures shows Gabrielle at the divisional event where she won her joint award.

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
Stephenson House, 75 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2PL
Tel: 020 3214 5756 e-mail:communications.cnwl@nhs.net