The HMViP (Home Mechanical Ventilation in Partnership) Group is celebrating World HMV Day on 20th May this year by highlighting the roles of the clinical teams who care for HMV users through a campaign called #2minuteswiththeHMVteam.
HMV can benefit patients with conditions that damage the lungs, such as COPD and those that restrict the movement of air in and out of the body, including obesity, curvature of the spine (also known as Kyphoscoliosis), and neuromuscular conditions such as Motor Neurone Disease and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
Alison Armstrong, Chair of the group and Nurse Consultant in the North-East Assisted Ventilation Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, comments:
"Our aim as a group is to raise awareness, share knowledge and improve education amongst clinicians and HMV users, their families and carers.
"As part of this, we feel that it is important to make HMV users and their families more aware of what the skills of different professions bring to the care pathway of someone receiving home mechanical ventilation. We also hope that it would be helpful to understand what motivates the members of the clinical team who provide their care. So, we’ve asked members of the clinical multi-disciplinary team, from speech and language therapists to specialist nurses, consultants to occupational health therapists, to share what they love about their job, what the challenges are and even what their desert island luxury would be!
“On 20th May, we’ll be sharing the two-minute videos on our social media channels and through our website, and we hope that the HMV community as a whole will join us in celebrating the role which HMV plays in supporting quality of life by adding life to years.”
The HMViP Group is made up of a multi-disciplinary team, representing HMV centres across the UK, with a wealth of knowledge and practical experience in this field. It includes respiratory consultants, clinical nurse specialists, specialist respiratory physiotherapists, and occupational health therapists, as well as HMV users and carers.
Find out more about World HMV day
Photo courtesy of The Churchill, Oxford