“Imagine a project which seeks to take the best attributes of hospice care and inculcate them into the fabric of the acute hospital. Not just one hospital, but all hospitals in a whole country. Consider a project that is about a joined up approach to clinical care when death is near, that takes seriously the relationship between hospital design and the potential to deliver dignified care, and that adopts an ‘all systems’ approach to its mode of operation. Think of a project that has been able to attract support from major celebrities, politicians and people from the creative media to promote better end of life care in hospitals and advocate for change. These are just some of the ingredients of the Hospice Friendly Hospitals initiative that first began to develop in Ireland in the late 1990s.
This week the Irish Hospice Foundation – the home and source of inspiration for the idea of Hospice Friendly Hospitals – is publishing two reports on this work, and taking stock of where it can go in the future. One of the reports was prepared by Fiona Graham and I – and takes the form of a narrative history of the entire Hospice Friendly Hospitals initiative over a period of almost 15 years – from initial ideas, to pilot scheme, to national roll out. The report turns a detailed gaze on the intervention, suggests ideas for future consideration and may also inspire others to adopt and adapt the ‘Hospice Friendly’ concept elsewhere.”
Read the rest of the blog post on Prof Clark’s ‘End of Life Studies‘ blog.
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