Behind the care: Izzy Patrick
We spoke with Sexual Health Nurse Practitioner Izzy from the health inclusion and homelessness team to learn more about their role and the exceptional work they do.
What is your role?
My role was created to incorporate sexual health nursing into an existing health inclusion and homelessness team. It’s important that people of the homeless community can access the sexual health services they need, in a way that suits them. Attending a mainstream sexual health service is often not feasible or even appropriate for our patient group.
Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity funded my role for the first year, as a pilot, and I have now been made permanent with NHS funding. This means that patients are now receiving the specialist care they need, such as STI testing, contraception, and advice and support, when they simply wouldn’t have done before.
All of this happens in the community, in non-traditional settings. I go to where the client group are.
Tell us about a typical day
The beauty of this job is that there is no typical day. I get up in the morning with no idea how it’s going to go. There are usually results to check from the week before, so I do that, and I check through my patient notes from recent appointments. I’ll also have referrals from other services or when my own team have seen a patient with a sexual health need. If we know where they are, for example a hostel, I’ll hop on my bike and head there. I often cycle to see certain people, and while I’m there I’ll see if anyone else needs to see me. It’s very much an in-reach service.
On certain days, I run more typical walk-in clinics at existing community services so that people can see me while there attending for something else.
I have to be very flexible and adaptable, because every moment with a member of our patient group is an opportunity and we don’t know when we’ll be in contact with them again. We have to make every contact count.
What is the best thing about your job?
It’s an incredibly rewarding job and I love seeing individuals get what they need and having little success stories. This patient group are so often overlooked, and I have the chance to give them visibility. I get to give to give people a quality of life that they wouldn’t have otherwise, and that’s such a privilege.
