What is VeinCare
Veincare is a company that offers people advice about choice of treatments for their varicose and spider veins.
Consultant Surgeons who are specialists in Vascular and Venous surgery wanted to offer a greater choice to people than was possible in the National Health Service. The company was formed in 2004 because the doctors had become frustrated by the inability of the NHS to adapt to and fund new treatments for varicose veins.
The Staff
The company uses the services of doctors, nurses and vascular technicians who work in the National Health Service. These people only work with Veincare in their own time, once they have satisfied their contractual obligations to the NHS. The reason for this is to provide training and experience in both public and private sectors while giving NHS employees a method of supplementing their income. The system of cross-sector employment is designed to strengthen the Vascular Team in the NHS, thus providing greater job satisfaction and improved staff retention.
What can Veincare offer?
Veincare is proud of its relationship with the department of Vascular Surgery at the Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham. The unit in Nottingham, has pioneered the use of clinical nurse practitioners in the treatment of patients with varicose veins. In the NHS, the European Working time Directive has restricted the opportunities to train the next generation of surgeons. The Veincare system allows training and experience to be continued in the independent sector. The model that has worked well in the NHS is the basis for the Veincare Venous Pathway.
Cost effectiveness
The use of nurse practitioners and surgeons in training allows Veincare to provide a cost effective solution to the provision of Venous Surgery.
The Veincare Venous Pathway
Patients can be entered into the following care pathway at any point:
Sources of referral to Veincare
Patients who wish to use their Health Insurance
Patients who request a consultation and treatment as part of the self pay market.
Patients transferred to the independent sector from NHS waiting lists
Patients referred by Alliance Surgical plc
Consultation Options
Consultation with a Consultant Vascular Surgeon
Consultation with a Vascular Radiologist
Consultation with a supervised Clinical Nurse Practitioner
Consultation with a supervised Vascular Surgical Trainee
Consultations with a consultant surgeon follow the current format of a 30minute outpatient consultation and where necessary a venous duplex scan.
Consultations with a nurse practitioner or trainee take place simultaneously to a Consultant surgeon’s own clinics. When required, the patient can be seen by the consultant who then checks that the correct treatment plan has been initiated. Digital photography is used to record patients’ conditions and acts as an audit tool for the various practitioners.
Investigation of venous disease
All patients who request treatment of their varicose veins will be offered complete venous duplex assessment of the varicose veins by a trained technician, where possible, at the time of their consultation. This reduces the number of visits that a patient has to make before treatment, thus reducing time between referral and treatment.
Treatment options
This is the component of the Veincare Venous Pathway that offers a greater choice to patients than they can receive in the NHS in many parts of the United Kingdom.
Depending on their condition, patients can be offered treatment of their veins by any of the following methods:
Traditional Venous Surgery by a Specialist Surgeon
Traditional Venous Surgery by a trainee under supervision of a Specialist Surgeon
Keyhole Venous Surgery with Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) by a Specialist Surgeon
Keyhole Venous Surgery(RFA) by a supervised nurse practitioner or trainee surgeon
Varicofoam therapy by a Specialist Surgeon
Endovenous Laser Ablation by a Specialist Surgeon
Micro-sclerotherapy by a specialist surgeon
Micro-sclerotherapy by a supervised nurse practitioner or trainee.
A detailed description of the treatment methods can be found by clicking the links.
Definitions
Consultant Surgeon – An NHS employed consultant Vascular Surgeon with admitting rights to the hospital where care is to be delivered.
Clinical Nurse Practitioner- A registered Nurse, employed by the NHS, who has completed SCOPE packages and training in the management of venous disease and venous surgical techniques.
Vascular Trainee – a specialist registrar who has been certified as competent to perform venous treatments alone or under supervision.
Supervision – the consultant surgeon will be in the hospital where care is provided. Normally this will be the out-patient clinic or an adjacent operating theatre.