Rehabilitative palliative care is an approach which combines rehabilitation and self-management with the holistic model of palliative care.
This requires a fundamental shift in approach across nursing, medical and psychosocial teams and puts the patient (and those close to them) at the heart and builds a care package informed by their wishes.
To support hospices in this approach, last year Hospice UK, St Joseph’s Hospice and St Christopher’s Hospice published a report on rehabilitative palliative care, which offers a rational and guidance for adopting a rehabilitative approach, and includes several examples of where this approach has already been adopted by hospices.
Building on this, the new grant programme has been designed to help hospices put into practice the recommendations of this report and/or the findings from their own feasibility study/scoping exercise. Funding is also available to help adapt existing activities to make a greater impact – for example to new patient groups.
Hospice UK expects to award between 12 and 15 grants to support projects running over a period of 18 months.
Grants can be used to develop a whole system approach to care or for discrete targeted projects, such as breathlessness management, fatigue management, self-management approaches to pain and falls prevention projects.
Projects could include:
- appointing a project leader to drive whole system change in approach to assessment, goal setting and self-management
- introducing rehabilitation assistant roles across care settings
- new roles for allied health professionals in educational and clinic based roles
- incorporating rehabilitation volunteers into care models
- working with local stakeholders to develop new partnerships.
Karl Benn, grants manager at Hospice UK, said: “This is a fantastic programme that focuses on what many hospices are seeking to develop. We are enormously grateful to St. James’s Place Foundation for their generous funding of the programme.”
Organisations which are full members of Hospice UK are eligible to apply. The deadline for applications is 8 June 2016.
Details of eligibility criteria and how to apply can be found on Hospice UK’s website.
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