Marie Curie publishes emergency admissions briefing
The charity argues that emergency admissions in the final year of life can often be avoided with adequate care in the community is provided
We say we need to boost NHS community services so there are enough beds and staff to ensure good end of life care.
In the run up to Dying Matters Awareness Week 2018, Staffordshire’s Health and Wellbeing Board, alongside Together We're Better, have launched a campaign to encourage people to speak openly and honestly about death and dying and ensure their final wishes are known.
Asking patients with palliative care needs about their end-of-life (EoL) preferences is widely acknowledged as an important aspect of EoL care. However, the issue of how to ask patients these questions has not been fully explored. Most prior studies in this area do not differentiate between patients' pragmatic preferences and ideal preferences, and between preferences concerning place of care (PoC) and place of death (PoD). To read the full article, log in using your SSOTP NHS OpenAthens details. SSSFT - You can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
The aim of this article is to report on a supplementary analysis exploring the experiences and questions of PeolcPSP survey respondents regarding symptoms, hydration and nutrition. Open Access Article
A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on death and dying was conducted to open the dialogue around death and dying. In one activity, participants were asked to engage with language and to think of alternative words (or euphemisms) that are used to describe death.
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Implications for practice and research:
> Unmet learning needs exist among staff supporting people with intellectual disabilities at end of life and in bereavement, which should be addressed within care settings.
> There is evidence that partnership working between intellectual disability and palliative care services can enable the end-of-life care needs of people with intellectual disabilities to be more effectively assessed and addressed.
> Further studies are required to explore staff experiences in supporting people with intellectual disabilities in these sensitive issues.
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In palliative care, administration of opioids is often indispensable for pain treatment. Pain assessment may help recognize pain and guide treatment in non-communicative patients. In the Netherlands the Rotterdam Elderly Pain Observation Scale (REPOS) is recommended to this aim, but not yet validated. Therefore the objective of this study was to validate the REPOS in non-communicative or unconscious end-of-life patients.
Open Access Article
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This study explored the lived experiences of clinical nurse specialists who can prescribe independently in their role of providing support to patients with palliative care needs within the community. Part 1 of this study examined how the study was carried out; this second part explores the findings. The nurses reported that being able to prescribe enabled them to provide seamless, holistic care, which gave patients faster access to medicines, especially at weekends when their GP was unavailable.
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The Auditing Care at the End of Life (ACE) instrument contains 27 questions captured across 6 domains, which are indicative of quality end-of-life care for nursing home residents.
Open Access Article
This is an excellent, fascinating and highly accessible read on spirituality in hospice care for professionals in health and social care and the wider public. It presents rich and creative narratives on spiritual interactions with patients and families from a diverse range of experienced hospice healthcare professionals and volunteers.
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Despite UK national guidance on care after death, it is clear that the bereaved family can experience distress while waiting for the patient's death to be verified. This distress can escalate if there is a delay in verification....It is hoped that this guidance will help to avoid delays that may cause additional distress to grieving families. This article sets out the rationale for the guidance, as well as discussing outstanding concerns and proposals for future considerations
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In 2011, an expert-developed proxy-based instrument for the assessment of symptom burden in palliative patients, the Palliative Symptom Burden Score (PSBS), was implemented at the Specialised Palliative Care Unit of the University Medical Centre in Dusseldorf, Germany. The present study investigated its feasibility, acceptance and psychometric properties.
Open Access Article
Norway has one of the lowest home death rates in Europe. However, it is the health authorities´ ambition to increase this by facilitating palliative care at home. The aim of this study was to achieve more insight, through home care nurses and general practitioners, of conditions that facilitate or hamper more time at home and more home deaths for patients with terminal disease and short life expectancy.
The article discusses some important issues to consider when responding to emotions experienced by patients in palliative care. Topics mentioned include the need for health experts to correctly interpret a patient's body language to understand the full extent of what they are feeling, how district nurses can help patients to regulate their emotions to improve their wellbeing, and the importance of being aware that a patient will often be experiencing a range of emotions at any one time. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Recently, there has been dialogue on improving the provision of palliative care in the post-Liverpool care pathway era. Current literature includes recommendations for new ways of thinking that can reshape and align palliative care services with the principles of public health ... To read the full article, log in using your MPFT NHS OpenAthens details.
In this overview we discuss the palliative psychiatric care of older people towards the end of life. We briefly consider ethics, dementia care, delirium, depression, anxiety, grief and physician-assisted suicide. We also discuss hope, dignity, spirituality and existentialism. We hope that this article will encourage clinicians to reflect on the effects of terminal illnesses on the mental health of dying people and the current provision of palliative psychiatric care. . To read the full article, log in using your MPFT NHS OpenAthens details.
The acute hospital palliative care team at London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust provides specialist palliative care advice and supports end-of-life care across the trust. We have experienced a year-on-year increase in demand for our services and have previously managed this by recruiting more clinical nurse specialists. The appointment of two assistant practitioners to support end-of-life care has allowed us to look at a different model of care and new ways of working to meet increasing demands on our service. To read the full article, log in using your MPFT NHS OpenAthens details