Between 2013 and 2024, the number of referrals to community nursing services increased steadily. This rise went from 4,000 to 6,000 per 100,000 people in the national data. At the same time, the unique number of people using these services stayed stable around 2,600 to 2,800. This suggests more people are being referred, but the total number of unique users did not climb.
The time nurses spend on each case dropped markedly. It went from over 150 days to around 50 days. Contact frequency remained stable at a median of 23 total contacts per service user. The length of face-to-face contacts also stayed steady at a median of 26 minutes. Palliative and end-of-life care consistently accounted for 9.6% of all community nursing clinical time.
These findings come from secondary analyses of existing national and regional datasets. The data covers adults receiving care through community health nursing services. Total care hours declined, though specific numbers were not reported. This evidence informs better planning to ensure sufficient provision and workforce in community health nursing.