Heartbeat: Colleagues share feedback to improve end of life experience for patients

January 23, 2019

An engagement session to help our connected palliative care team improve the service saw more than 50 colleagues sharing their ideas.

The event was organised by the connected palliative care team, with those attending talking about how they can help achieve the Six National Ambitions for palliative and end of life care in our area.

This is part of a series of events being run in partnership with Sandwell and West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group and Sandwell Wellbeing board.

Dr Anna Lock, Palliative Medicine Consultant, said: “We were delighted to welcome many colleagues from different disciplines to our engagement event. We spent a lot of time discussing how we and our partners can improve ‘end of life ‘experiences for the people we look after.

“In this year alone, over 80 per cent of our patients died at their preferred place of death. It was an encouraging result as it means that our team was able to help those patients achieve their wish.

“We know that there are 5,000 people who die in Sandwell and West Birmingham every year and about 1,200 of them die in hospital, which is not what everyone wants.

“By working with our partners, we hope to provide a comforting experience for our dying patients and their families.

“Colleagues who attended this event were very positive and their ideas were greatly welcomed. Our team was also part of a similar public engagement event in December, where we brought together members of the public and service providers to engage with wider groups in the community. Dying is not just a medical experience, it affects everyone and we need to work out what will work best in the Sandwell and West Birmingham area.”

Caroline Servando, a staff nurse who attended the event, said: “I found the session really interesting. The information was helpful and now I feel more confident about speaking to patients and their families about palliative care.

“I think it’s important that we have open conversations with patients and their relatives about what they want in the event that they die. It might be difficult, but it will help us to make the right arrangements for the patients and give them that peace of mind.”