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A founder of the faith nursing movement in New Zealand, Elaine Tyrrell, was recently honoured with a Queen's Service Medal for her nearly 20 years work in the field.

Tyrrell was a pilot parish or faith nurse in Nelson in 1998 and in 2003 hosted the training conference in Nelson, at which the New Zealand Faith Community Nurses Association was inaugurated.

She says the movement has been snowballing since the 2003 conference, with faith nurses dotted across the country whose work includes foot clinics for the elderly, working with people after the Canterbury and Seddon quakes, serving in Pacific communities in Auckland and with the Salvation Army. 

Faith nurses are registered nurses with an annual practising certificate who feel 'called to care' and provide health promotion, health education and support for those in need as part of their Christian faith.

Tyrrell currently works as a rehabilitation nurse – in which she holds a master's degree – but remains an advisor to the association's board and provides supervision and support for the four part-time, paid faith nurses working in the Nelson Anglican diocese, and a new Salvation Army nurse in the region.

She says faith nurses are mostly volunteers and the requirement to meet ongoing competence standards means numbers remain small, with a core of around 30 around the country. The board has nurses from a number of denominations, including Baptist, Anglican, Catholic, the Vineyard Churches and the Salvation Army. Links have also been built with faith and parish nurse movements in the United States, Canada and Australia, plus in the early days Tyrrell's parish nursing noticeboard in Nelson Cathedral was spotted by a visiting English tourist, which helped to spur the growth of the parish nurse movement in the United Kingdom.

Tyrrell says for a number of years the association ran training programmes but now offers online training modules to registered nurses who are interested in faith nursing.

She says faith nurses often help to meet a need in the community by encouraging and supporting those who need to see their GP, including sometimes accompanying them to their appointment. They also support people after discharge from hospital and support long-time caregivers of people with chronic illness.

"Faith nurses work with anybody who wants their support," says Tyrrell. "One of the lovely aspects is that the church has been there as a source of socialisation if people would like to join, but that is very much up to them."

In September Nelson is set to host the association's conference again – the first time since the inaugural conference back in 2003.

Tyrrell is the second faith nurse to be awarded a QSM, with Christchurch faith community nurse Noreen Wright receiving her award in 2014 for developing foot clinics for the elderly (involving a foot bath, toenail trim and foot massage), which have since been taken up and offered in communities elsewhere in the South Island and wider afield. 

More information can be found at the association's website: www.faithcommunitynursing.nz.