Community matron
Community matrons provide care and support to people with long-term or complicated health conditions.
What you'll do
Day-to-day tasks
In this role you could:
- carry out physical examinations and treatments
- manage the care patients receive and refer to a specialist if needed
- identify when a patient can be cared for at home and organise extra support
- teach patients, carers and relatives to spot changes that could lead to conditions getting worse
- keep records and make sure policy guidelines are followed
Working environment
You could work at a hospice, in a prison, at an adult care home, at a client's home or in an NHS or private hospital.
Your working environment may be physically and emotionally demanding.
Career path and progression
With experience, you could train to become a nurse specialist practitioner, providing advanced care for people in the community, while leading a team.
You could move into service management and become head of community nursing.
You might also work in health promotion, teaching or training.
What it takes
Skills and knowledge
You'll need:
- customer service skills
- the ability to work well with others
- the ability to use your initiative
- to be flexible and open to change
- sensitivity and understanding
- to enjoy working with other people
- the ability to come up with new ways of doing things
- knowledge of teaching and the ability to design courses
- to be able to carry out basic tasks on a computer or hand-held device
Restrictions and Requirements
You'll need to:
How to become
You can get into this job through:
- an apprenticeship
- working towards this role
- applying directly
You can apply to do a Community Nurse Specialist Practitioner or Specialist Community Public Health Nurse Level 7 Professional Apprenticeship, if you're already a registered nurse.
This can take between 2 and 3 years to complete.
Entry requirements
Employers will set their own entry requirements.
More Information
You can become a community matron by doing professional development training with your employer.
You'll need to be a registered nurse in any branch, or a registered health professional, for example a speech and language therapist.
You'll also need:
- to get a postgraduate master's qualification
- specialist knowledge of different nursing procedures and practice
- knowledge of long-term health conditions and treatments
- experience of managing a team
Find out more about how you can develop your nursing career through the NHS Leadership Academy.
You can apply directly if you're a registered nurse or health professional and have between 3 and 5 years' post-registration experience.
You might also need:
- a degree or postgraduate diploma in community practice, specialising in district nursing, health visiting or practice nursing
- a relevant teaching or mentoring qualification
- a nurse prescribing qualification
Registration
- you'll need to register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council
Further information
You can find out more about working in healthcare from Health Careers.
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This page contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.