The new tool, ‘Progress for Providers‘ is a self-assessment tool, aimed primarily at managers and teams who are delivering end of life care in hospices or care homes or in people’s own homes.
It is designed with the patient’s needs at the forefront ensuring a ‘person-centred’ approach as opposed to focusing on a general end of life care method or pathway.
The tool aims to support health and social care professionals to assess whether the care they are providing is tailored to patients’ individual needs and wishes and develop, improve and measure their current care provision.
The self-assessment tool asks professionals to look at their practices, policies, knowledge and skills, as well as those of their team, and at the experience of the person at the end of their life and the people who matter to that person. It takes just 40 minutes to complete the self-assessment.
The need for health and social care professionals to get the care for dying patients right is becoming increasingly evident in light of an ageing population and following the independent review into the Liverpool Care Pathway which called for the pathway to be replaced with a more person-centred approach to end of life care.
Philip Ball, palliative care services manager at Sue Ryder, said: “Delivering choice and personalised care for people at the end of their lives is dependent on robust and proactive systems for communicating them, understanding their preferences and recording them in a way that is easily understood by all those with whom they come into contact. Without this, the dying person is far more likely to have a bad end of life care experience and we must do all we can to avoid this.”
Heather Richardson, national clinical lead at Help the Hospices, added: “Progress for Providers – end of life, goes a long way to making personalised support an achievable goal. It offers comprehensive and concrete suggestions. Personalised support will be increasingly important as we consider future needs for care and support at the end of life.”
Sue Ryder developed the end of life self assessment care tool ‘Progress for Providers’ in partnership with Helen Sanderson Associates, Hull City Council and St Ann’s Hospice.
Progress for providers – end of life care is available to download for free.
Free hard copies are being handed out today (23 October) at the Sue Ryder stall at the Help the Hospices conference.
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