The conference focused on recommendations emerging from the Commission into the Future of Hospice Care, and it was the launch of the Commission’s final report which dominated proceedings.
Delegates got their hands on the hotly anticipated report as they made their way into the second day’s opening plenary, where there was certainly a buzz in the air.
The plenary was led by Dame Clare Tickell (Commission Chair) and Dame Barbara Monroe (Vice-Chair), with responses and comments from leading sector professionals Dr Bee Wee, national clinical director for end of life care, Dr Jane Collins, chief executive of Marie Curie Cancer Care, Paul Woodward, chief executive of Sue Ryder, and Help the Hospices chief executive David Praill.
Setting the scene for the session, Lord Michael Howard, Chairman of Help the Hospices, said that it was “the most important plenary to have taken place at a Help the Hospices conference for a very long time.” He went on to praise Clare and Barbara for leading an “extraordinary exercise”.
In front of a packed auditorium, Clare Tickell took to the microphone to present the case for change in the hospice movement.
‘Foresight and bravery’
She opened by thanking Help the Hospices for having the foresight and bravery to set up the Commission, and paid tribute to the talented group of commissioners and support team that worked with her.
Barbara then stepped up to summarise the recommendations.
In an impassioned address, she encouraged hospices to be better at understanding what is “enough support to empower people”, calling on the sector to be cost effective and offer value for money.
She went on to say that hospices need to be better at managing risk and in supporting staff to take risks – an issue which was picked up by Diane Laverty (nurse consultant in palliative medicine at St Joseph’s Hospice) in a parallel session on the hospice workforce of the future, in which she called on nurses to be less averse to taking risks.
In his response to the report, Paul Woodward called on hospice chief executives and their boards to devote a minimum of three hours to reading and absorbing the document. Meanwhile, Dr Bee Wee focused on integration in the sector, calling on hospices to integrate their efforts with the NHS.
David Praill said that the report was “the single most important document the movement has ever produced”.
In her response, Dr Collins picked up on a constant theme at the conference which was complacency, stating that if hospices are satisfied, they will become complacent, adding that they need to be “restless”.
This was also reiterated by Joy Milliken of St Margaret’s Somerset Hospice in a session later that day; presenting the ‘Hospice without walls’ programme, which has helped to increase access to care for more people (another key conference theme.) She quoted life coach Anthony Robbins who said that “if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten”.
Launchpad
The final Commission report was not the only important document launched at the conference.
Sue Ryder launched ‘Progress for Providers’, a self-assessment tool aimed primarily at managers and teams who are delivering end of life care, which is designed to improve person-centred, end of life care. Meanwhile, Help the Hospices showcased its impact report, showing how it has supported hospice care over the past year, and also gave an advanced screening of a British Sign Language resource about hospice care (which ehospice will feature once it is officially launched).
But it was the other remaining Commission reports debuting at the conference which generated the most interest, and which kept the Help the Hospices staff busy meeting the demand for copies.
These cover a range of issues, including supporting family carers, supporting people with dementia, research in palliative care, the future of hospice education, and the future hospice workforce, all of which can be downloaded from the Help the Hospices website.
‘Put on your oxygen mask’
As well as being the subject of a Commission report and parallel session, Dr Alex Jadad, of the Centre for Global e-health innovation, broached the issue of the workforce in his plenary, stressing there is a lot of burnout and stress in the hospice sector. He called on delegates to “put on their oxygen mask first”, imploring everyone in the auditorium to look after themselves in order to be able to look after others well.
As Dr Richard Smith had in the conference’s opening plenary, Dr Jadad gave a very personal speech, reflecting on his own health scares as he addressed the issue of dying healthy and happy.
He began by exploring what “healthy” actually means and questioned whether we are condemned not to be healthy. His focus was on promoting health even in the presence of disease, and quoted research which suggests that cancer patients who rate their own health as poor are more at risk of dying than those cancer patients who rated their health as good.
He called on everyone to tune in and pay more attention to what patients say and consider carefully how they feel. Interestingly, when Dr Jadad asked for a quick show of hands of people who would like to die the way their patients die now, very few raised their hands.
Working in partnership
Not surprisingly, given the strong focus on collaboration in the Commission report, partnership working featured heavily at the conference. In a session entitled ‘Working collaboratively’, Jane Brake gave a case study of the collaborative relationship her hospice has with their local acute hospital.
With a need for more local beds, the two organisations worked together to implement plans for six palliative care beds within the hospital. This setting gives more patients access to high quality palliative care. “This was an opportunity to work with the local CCG and redesign local pathways”, she said.
In another session on the cost effectiveness of giving patients choice, partnership working was again a key focus, with Help the Hospices director of policy, Jonathan Ellis, calling on hospices to look at improving partnerships with care homes, the NHS and other settings.
Response from delegates
ehospice caught up with the several delegates throughout the conference to get their thoughts on the event and the Commission findings.
Firstly we spoke with Nicky West, chief executive of St Michael’s Hospice Hereford, who said that the Commission reports will “help enormously in positioning ourselves in the new commissioning world”.
“It is up to us to develop our locally appropriate responses and communicate these effectively to our audiences,” she added.
Jane Finnerty from Willowbrook Hospice said she found the conference invigorating and inspiring, meanwhile Pam Firth, an independent consultant in psychosocial palliative care, said the plenary sessions had been so well thought out and linked, and welcomed the range of “excellent” reports to digest.
Wrapping up
Bringing the conference to a close, Help the Hospices chief executive David Praill said that 22 October was a defining moment in the history of Help the Hospices, referring to the launch of the Commission report.
He reflected briefly on some of the recent successes of the charity, but was keen to stress that it is what happens next that is important. He outlined some of the priorities for the organisation, including supporting hospices to roll out the Commission recommendations, and called on hospices to work together to create a strong and shared story of hospice care.
You can see a gallery of images from the 2013 Help the Hospices conference on ehospice.
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