Nurse consultant shortlisted for two awards
A trust nurse who is the first in the world to highlight the importance of using a skin tone card to spot the early warning signs of pressure ulcers and other skin damage among black and Asian patients has been shortlisted in two categories in the annual BAME Health and Care Awards.
Luxmi Dhoonmoon, a nurse consultant in Tissue Viability at LNWH Trust, is shortlisted in the BAME Nurse of the Year and Trailblazer in Inclusion Excellence categories.
Luxmi was puzzled why so many of her patients from ethnic minorities were presenting with late-stage ulcers that hadn't previously been diagnosed.
In advanced stages, pressure ulcers can deepen significantly and, in the most severe cases, expose or affect underlying bone impacting on patients' quality of life.
“Sometimes things are so obvious we overlook them,” said the nurse consultant specialising in tissue viability who realised that the first signs of ulcers - discoloured skin - where being hidden by patients' darker skin tone.
In response, every healthcare assistant and nurse at the hospital trust has now been issued with a skin tone card which shows a graduation of skin colours from light to dark helping healthcare professionals see if there is a potential problem.
Luxmi says she hopes the skin tone card can now be adapted to help identify early-stage cellulitis, a painful bacterial skin infection.