SCP: Your Guide to Giving Excellent Palliative & End of Life Care
December 1, 2021
National Standards tell us that a key part of excellent Palliative and End of Life Care is using a structured care plan to guide care.
We know that early conversations help people with a palliative diagnosis meet their goals of care including where they die and families. For example allowing time to plan a ‘fast track’ discharge for someone to die in their own home or patients to have important conversations with people they love.
At SWBH for people who we think have a prognosis of less than 1 year , so Months, Weeks or Days, we use the Supportive Care Plan (SCP) as our guide. It can be found in the Clinical Work Flow in Unity. Our ambition is that for 80% of people this will be in place in time to allow people to have a dignified end of life experience.
Recognise palliative care needs we have built the SPICT Tool within the Unity SCP Workflow which will help you identify people who are likely to have palliative care needs and support discussions within the ward MDT & patient about priorities, care needs and the future (and family/carers as appropriate). It can be completed independently of the SCP as a screening tool by any clinician and can then be added to when the SCP is agreed as appropriate.
Initiation of the SCP is done by the medical team responsible for the patient’s care by populating the initial medical assessment in the workflow including medical condition, patient and family’s understanding and wishes for the future including preferences about onward care. There will then be a flag assigned to that patient highlighting the need to ensure excellent supportive and palliative care.
Nursing Care can be then documented using the SCP shift assessment to guide symptom assessment and family/carer support in the same workflow.
SCP ward round notes will then pull info from nursing shift reviews and reviews to keep information together and reduce time inputting information.
After death – use the ‘Aftercare module’ in the workflow to document verification, property and care of the bereaved.
For more guidance about using the SCP in Unity you can use the ebook link above (NB supported in chrome or Edge – avoid using explorer) or find it via Unity ‘eCoach’ which is accessible from the tabs at the top of Unity where you will find the Quick Reference Guide and online learning modules.
Training modules can also be accessed directly here
– Log In if you already have an account OR click Register – follow the instructions and look out for
authorisation email
– Click at the top left and then Library
– Click Unity Training and scroll down to the four Supportive Care Plan courses
– Click the header / picture for the course relevant to your role
– Click Enrol at the top right of each course and then scroll down to complete the modules listed (followthe on-screen instructions as the formats vary)