Multiple sclerosis (MS) has no cure, and many patients with the illness feel that they are on the peripheries of society with no idea about how they fit in. Having the condition can be a lonely experience. As a specialist MS nurse, I see myself as a bridge between people with MS and the wider world.

Talking to people with MS, you get a sense that many feel the health service leaves them to cope alone with the emotional implications of living with the condition, and they often feel completely disengaged from their local community.

This is where I step in. As an MS nurse working as part of a multi-disciplinary care team, I am entirely focused on the specific needs of people with the disease. MS is a constantly changing condition, and people's care needs fluctuate from week to week. Their requirements are incredibly diverse.

People are faced with a stream of health professionals, such as neurologists and occupational therapists, tramping through their doors at different times. One of the biggest ways I can make a difference is by being able to alert medical professionals such as mobility specialists and social care workers to individuals on a case by case basis.

My job is unpredictable. I see about 15 patients every week and combine home care visits with running clinics at the local hospital and education and awareness programmes in the local community.

I've been a nurse since 1995, but got bored with being stuck on a ward. I did some neurological nursing training and then moved to the Barton Rehabilitation Centre, in Huddersfield, to start working as part of a multi-disciplinary team providing services to patients suffering from neurological diseases such as MS and Parkinson's.

One of the things that appealed to me when I applied to be a MS nurse was the one-to-one contact with patients. I thrive on the house visits. Being able to provide direct care is the main reason I got into nursing. None of my family or friends has ever had the condition, but I feel a real affinity with MS patients and that I am making a difference to their lives by providing them with such specialist attention.

The work can be very draining. You become more than a carer when you visit people in their homes: you are treated like a confidante. I get the sense that many patients feel that no one really talks to them about how the disease has affected them mentally or emotionally, so I do find myself playing counsellor to patients still trying to cope with how their lives have changed.

There are 85,000 people living with MS in Britain. The MS Society - which part funds my post, along with the Calderdale Huddersfield NHS trust - estimates that there are only about 50% of the specially trained nurses required to meet the government's minimum guidelines for care in the community. There should be 300 MS nurses to properly service patients' needs, but I'm one of only 163. The MS Society is using this week's annual MS Awareness Week to try to raise money to help fund more MS nurses.

The flexibility of the role has allowed me and my colleague, Audrey Puttersfield, to get our teeth into some really unusual programmes that have enabled us to boost the morale of some of our patients.

Many MS patients feel dependent on traditional medicines and rely entirely on the programme of care and medication prescribed by health professionals, but we wanted to show them that there are supplementary options out there.

This led us to organise an education day in a local complimentary health college. We invited local MS patients to come along for massages and alternative health treatments from people training in holistic medicine.

It was also the thinking behind a Filofax project I launched at last year's annual national MS conference. Patients have to keep on top of a huge amount of information, so we created an information resource that contains a patient's case notes, medication schedules and relapse information to try to give them back control of their lives.

It's gratifying to see how well it has been received by patients. They appreciate that it didn't have multiple sclerosis written all over it and they could take it away on holiday or use it in company without drawing attention to their illness. After the conference, I got a lot of inquiries from health trusts interested in creating a similar product for MS patients in other areas of the country.

MS care and nursing services are still vastly underfunded, and MS patients seem to be somewhere near the bottom of the pile. I would like to see that change. People living with MS are some of the bravest and strongest people I know, and deserve as much one to one attention as any other patient.