The latest National Audit of Care at the End of Life results shows that our Trust continues to set the bar nationally in continuing to deliver high quality of care to people coming to the end of their life.
The latest results show we have scored above the national average in every domain, including patient involvement in decision making with their care, communication with the patient, their families and loved ones and our workforce.
Clinical Director for End of Life Care, Shane Moody, said:
“The national audit results provide great assurance to our local community that we are continuing to improve end of life care to ensure if a person dies within the hospital the experience is personalised and compassionate, as well as providing the most appropriate environment to support the dying patient and their family.”
The scores further recognise the transformation that has taken place across the service over the past few years, and is still rated ‘Good’ by the Care Quality Commission.
To mark Dying Matters Awareness Week (8 to 14 May 2023) we have also published our latest End of Life Care Strategy 2023-2026 which was developed in partnership with the local community. Feedback was gathered through an extensive programme of face to face and online engagement to understand what matters most to them at the end of their life. The new strategy focuses on 5 key themes that are in direct response to the feedback received:
- Improved communication
- To be given choices
- To be supported
- Education
- Diversity
Director of Nursing, Midwifery and AHPs, Juliet Pearce said: “The results reflect the hard work and commitment of our staff to provide the very best end of life care and support to our patients, their families, carers and loved ones.
“Our new strategy, that has also been developed in response to our 2021 NACEL results, sets out our vision to build on future care planning, developing our staff’s knowledge and skills and our ambition to provide personalised person-centred care.”
Building on the success of last year’s results to the team have implemented and embedded several improvements across the service, including:
- Bereavement follow up calls to bereaved families
- Referral to the hospital palliative and end of life care team (IPET) are seen within 70 minutes of receiving the referral
- Continued use of glass hearts to keep and support remembering their loved one, these are locally made on the IOW
- Purchase of a cuddle bed – this enables family members to be able lay with their loved one who is dying
- Since Wellow Unit was introduced in February 2020 this has reduced the number of deaths in ICU by 24% and CCU by 43%.
