The Myton Hospices has adopted a patient reported outcome measure, the Integrated Palliative Outcome Scale (IPOS), to advance their commitment to providing a holistic approach to their patients and families.
Until recent years hospices have relied on measuring activity and processes, such as the number of beds or numbers of patients seen to demonstrate their outputs.
Feedback from patient and their loved one’s about their experiences are vitally important, but they need robust ways of ensuring that they are providing the best possible care and making a meaningful difference to the whole community.
It can be challenging to measure the impact of palliative and end of life care for many reasons. Hospice services are all about improving quality of life, even in the face of disease that is progressing. Furthermore, it’s for not just about caring for the patient, but also those close to them.
Holistic care involves complex interventions from many different professionals and often over a period of several weeks or months.
Having been introduced a few years ago by NHS England, the IPOS now plays a pivotal role in Myton’s overall approach, enabling Myton to further improve the quality of care and reliably evaluate the impact of what they do.
Specialist Doctor at The Myton Hospices, Dr Nicky Baker, explains: “It is all about ensuring we deliver the right care to the right people at the right time and helping us to find ways to do that even better.”
The scale works by asking patients to score a set of questions covering physical symptoms, psychological concerns, level of spiritual distress and social issues, but more importantly focuses on those symptoms and concerns that matter most to the patient.
Dr Nicky adds: “By reviewing patient’s responses every week, we ensure we work effectively as a team to address the things that are most significant to the people we look after.
Many of them have multiple symptoms or concerns that are having a significant impact on their ability to live as fulfilling a life as possible, with pain, weakness, poor mobility, anxiety and family worries affecting more than two-thirds of all our inpatients.
What we are also able to demonstrate is that Myton really does make a difference to reduce the impact of all of these concerns on people’s quality of life.
Just as an example, 40% of patients coming into the hospice have pain that is rapidly escalating and they describe as severe or overwhelming. Spending time in the hospice means that the majority of these patients have an improvement in their pain, and 50% tell us their pain is reduced to little or none.”
Myton is now looking at ways to use the data to further evaluate and improve the effectiveness of their current offerings. This strategic move ensures that efforts are directed towards areas that will most benefit patients and their families across Coventry and Warwickshire.
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At The Myton Hospices we believe that everyone matters for every single moment of their life; we focus on enhancing life when cure is no longer an option. We are not just about end of life care, we support patients and their loved ones right from the moment they are diagnosed.
We have three hospices in Coventry, Rugby and Warwick, and have the only Hospice Inpatient beds in Coventry and Warwickshire. We care for people aged 18+ living with a wide range of life-limiting illnesses including Respiratory, Heart & Neurological conditions, Cancer and Organ failure.
We are a charity and we have to raise £11 million of the £14.3 million we need this year to continue providing our services free of charge. Just 20% of our funding comes from the NHS. We rely on donations and support from our local communities.
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