Play all audios:
Two community nurses from Cardiff, who specialise in continence and stoma care, have been given awards to mark their long service by a leading nursing charity. Pip Chandler and Lisa Leamon
have both been granted the Queen’s Nursing Institute Long Service Award for completing 21 years of continued service in community nursing. > “Congratulations to both Pip Chandler and Lisa
Leamon for their > commitment to community nursing” > > Crystal Oldman Ms Chandler took on the role of stoma staff nurse at the Royal Devon and Exeter in 1997, following a period
in an oncology unit in Cumbria that brought her into contact with an ostomate. Meanwhile, Ms Leamon became a specialist stoma nurse in the same year after spending time in the gynaecology
ward caring for patients who went on to have stomas. The experience spurred her on to specialise in ostomy care, she said. Both currently work for the medical device manufacturer Coloplast
Care. Ms Chandler is care nurse manager, managing the company’s community nurses covering Wales and the West of England including Bath, Bristol, Weston and Worcester. Ms Leamon is a care
nurse working in partnership with Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, where she looks after patients following bladder or bowel surgery leading to a stoma formation. She supports them
along a pathway that involves seeing them at home for the first six weeks post operatively, followed by regular appointments at stoma review clinics where she helps them to self-manage their
stomas. > “I am extremely proud to have been recognised for my work and of > the award” > > Pip Chandler She said: “Twenty-one years has flown by. I am extremely honoured to
have been awarded the Queens Nursing Institute Long Service Award. “I still remain as passionate and committed to my role in the community as I did when starting all those years ago,” she
said. “I feel privileged to have been part of the journey of the people I have met in the community environment.” Ms Chandler said: “I am extremely proud to have been recognised for my work
and of the award. “When I met my first ostomate, I was a little embarrassed that I didn’t know much about how to care for her,” she said. “However, I quickly became sympathetic to the
patient’s frustration over having to teach each new nurse that she saw how to care for her. “I remember feeling strongly that she deserved better and made a commitment then to do what I
could to help people living with a stoma and haven’t looked back since,” said Ms Chandler. > “I still remain as passionate and committed to my role in the > community as I did when
starting all those years ago” > > Lisa Leamon She added: “How times have changed! We used to have to carry loose change so we could call our patients on public telephones. I also
became quite good at reading Ordnance Survey maps in order to find my way around narrow and winding country lanes just to get to patients’ homes.” QNI chief executive Dr Crystal Oldman said:
“Congratulations to both Pip Chandler and Lisa Leamon for their commitment to community nursing and for reaching this great milestone in their careers. “This award from the QNI recognises
their dedication and the care that they have both given to so many patients, families, carers and communities,” she added.