A NURSING team helping patients in Huddersfield with painful joint problems is the best in Britain.

The team from the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust has scooped a top national award for their work to improve the care of patients suffering from lymphoedema.

The team won the British Journal of Nursing Lymphoedema Nursing Award 2011 at an awards ceremony in London hosted by TV doctor Christian Jessen and Chief Nursing Officer Dame Christine Beasley.

They took a whole new look at the service they provided to patients and came up with a project which saw clinics set up in the community.

It won them the BJN lymphoedema award from a shortlist of three other projects.

The judges hailed the project for showing initiative and hard work.

Lymphoedema is also known as lymphatic obstruction and is a condition of localised fluid retention and tissue swelling caused by a compromised lymphatic system.

Lymphoedema can be cancer or non-cancer related.

Symptoms may include severe fatigue, heavily-swollen limbs, including the head or neck, discolouration of the skin and eventually deformity.

Tissues with lymphoedema are at risk of infection.

Team leader Tracy Green, who has suffered from lymphoedema for many years herself, after an insect bite, said: “It is a real honour to be shortlisted and to win the award is an amazing result for our team.

“Without the team’s commitment it wouldn’t be here at all.

“We just hope the service makes a real difference to the lives of our patients.

“Having experienced the care myself I was able to see ways that we could improve it to provide the best care possible to patients.”

The team run clinics in hospital but it was their pioneering outreach clinics in the community at Brighouse and health centres in Halifax and Todmorden plus Dalton’s Kirkwood Hospice which won the award.

The clinics help sufferers to live normal lives by reducing the swelling, controlling the condition with compression garments, skin care advice and exercise.

The service has now been running for 18 months.

Tracy added: “Developments like this are important in continually improving the service we provide.

“This service has been locally designed based on the needs of patients through joining up acute and community care.”