Nursing Institutions - "Aid Abundant with Compassion"
In the heart of Solingen, the Alexianer St. Lukas Nursing Home is making significant strides in improving the quality of life for its elderly residents. Henning Nied, a qualified geriatric nurse and the training coordinator at the home, spearheads this initiative, overseeing two nursing facilities operated by the Alexianer: St. Lukas Nursing Home and St. Joseph Home for the Elderly on Langhansstraße.
The approach at the Alexianer is centred around relationship-based care, a method that emphasises the development and maintenance of strong, trusting relationships among nursing staff, care recipients, and often their family members. This approach is crucial for older adults with complex and evolving needs, as it provides a more personalised, consistent, and emotionally supportive care environment.
Building trust and continuity is a key aspect of relationship-based care. Consistent care teams or assigning personal nurses to residents fosters trust with both residents and family caregivers, improving care quality and enabling caregivers to have respite. Recognising and integrating into the existing routines and relationships of older persons is also essential for encouraging acceptance of professional care.
Nurses at the Alexianer play a supportive role not only for residents but also for informal caregivers, who are often under strain and elderly themselves. Relationship-based care acknowledges that roles and needs evolve, requiring flexible, phase-specific interventions. Despite its recognised value, effective implementation can be hindered by staff shortages, time constraints, and resource pressures common in care home settings.
In practice, relationship-based care at the Alexianer is implemented through consistent nursing assignments, emotional engagement, support for informal caregivers, and leadership that values personalised, patient-centred interactions. This approach is fundamental for improving the quality of life of residents and supporting sustainable care systems, though it requires deliberate organisational commitment and resource allocation to overcome systemic challenges.
Henning Nied, a staunch advocate of relationship-based care, emphasises the importance of the human touch in nursing, but also stresses the need for communication skills, flexibility, and teamwork. He recommends an internship before choosing a career in nursing and offers a one-year training in nursing assistance at the Alexianer in Solingen, a possibility for those with a secondary school leaving certificate.
The generalist nursing training, introduced in Germany in 2020, consists of 2100 hours of theory and learning about various care and living situations during the three-year training. Future nursing professionals learn about care and living situations in senior facilities, hospitals, home care, and psychiatry during their training. Those who complete the one-year nursing assistance training can continue with the three-year generalist nursing training.
Practice coordination at the Alexianer nursing facilities has created more time for training, ensuring that trainees receive comprehensive and hands-on learning experiences. Some trainees have switched from hospitals to geriatric care, mainly because they want to be closer to people. Good training cannot happen at the doorstep, hence practice coordinators like Henning Nied were established.
The goal of care in senior facilities at Alexianer St. Lukas Nursing Home is to optimally activate and promote the residents' abilities for as long as possible. With relationship-based care at the forefront, the Alexianer is making a tangible difference in the lives of its elderly residents, fostering an environment where they can bloom and become more active.
The Alexianer St. Lukas Nursing Home extends its commitment to improving quality of life beyond senior care, incorporating education-and-self-development by offering a one-year training in nursing assistance, emphasizing the importance of relationship-based care and the human touch in health-and-wellness. Henning Nied, a champion of this approach, underscores the significance of science in nursing by advocating for flexible, phase-specific interventions during career-development.
