Dying Matters: A Good Place to Die
May 6, 2022
This national Dying Matters Awareness Week, (May 2nd-6th) communities across the country are coming together to talk about death, dying and bereavement. So it’s time to pause, reflect and say thank you for some of the amazing gems springing up across our SWB community as we work towards providing fundamentally excellent care for people as they come towards the end of their lives.
Identifying people in need: Thank you to every clinician who thinks ‘could this person have palliative care needs’ and uses the SPICT tool in Unity to guide & record their thinking. Special shout out to the clinical team on D15 & 17 who have been testing using this routinely for patients.
Documenting and Sharing Goals: Thanks you to every clinical team which have conversations with each other, patients and their loved ones about whether the Supportive Care Plan may help deliver excellent care for them. The General Surgical team have been doing incredible work coaching each other to understand how to use the Supportive Care Plan effectively in Unity to guide patient and their loved one’s care.
Preparation & Planning: Thank you to all the teams who ask ‘what’s important to you and where would you like to be?’. We have seen his increasingly across our elderly care wards who are increasingly doing holistic palliative and end of life care planning and working to enable more people to have choices about where they die. With special thanks to the ward end of life nursing champions who are spreading the word and supporting colleagues to deliver on excellent end of life care.
Regular Review: Thank you to our community wards medical & nursing teams who have discovered that using the easy to complete SCP daily shift review is a great chance to show how nurses provide a vital part of palliative and end of life care as well as the ward round function which can make ward rounds more efficient and help busy clinicians keep track of patient’s wishes and concerns.
Finally thank you to all colleagues clinical and non-clinical who watched the short film made here at SWBH about why every little step we can make to improving people’s experience and memories is vital.
Paul whose father died at SWBH is at the heart of the film and recently spoke at our hospital Trust Board meeting about his experience and reminded all there about how memories of how when people we love die live on with us and that we have one chance to get it right.
Resources, training information and support can all be found here