Over the past six years, the GSF Centre has been working with eight Regional Centres, five of which are hospices, to provide training in end of life care to generalist frontline health and social care professionals.
According to the National GSF Centre, these partnerships have proved extremely exciting, synergistic and fruitful and, since becoming a regional centre in November 2012, Saint Francis Hospice in Romford has found the partnership very rewarding:
“Here at Saint Francis Hospice we have had some really positive benefits of becoming a Regional Training Centre, in particular how relationships with our local care homes have become stronger,” explains Caroline Scates, Head of Education at Saint Francis.
Caroline adds: “We are very positive about how this training changes processes and systems that improve end of life care and then further impact on the identification of those in need of care and thus reducing the chance of hospitalisation towards the end of life.
“Many of our GSF delegates are also attending our hospice education centre for further education and training and we are really seeing how education can make a difference to the confidence levels of staff. We are enjoying working with the National GSF team and working together to improve end of life care, and look forward to being part of new GSF developments as a Regional Training Centre.”
The National GSF Centre is keen to hear from hospices who would like to become regional centres if they:
- are, or aspire to be a centre of excellence in their area for education in end of life care
- want to work across generalist sectors providing end of life care.
- want to play a key part with CCGs in helping reduce avoidable hospital admissions.
- want to work with local care homes, domiciliary care, primary care and hospitals to improve end of life care in the community, especially for the frail elderly, those with long term conditions and dementia.
- would like to become a local centre from which the GSF programmes are delivered.
- have a focus on education, care for all people including the frail elderly and quality improvement.
The deadline to apply to be a Regional Centre is 29 August 2014. For further details, contact the National Centre on 01743 291891 or email info@gsfcentre.co.uk
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