New Hospice at Home Service
Hospice at Home – Update on our new clinical service
As highlighted in our last newsletter, Woodlands Hospice has been commissioned by NHS Sefton to set up and run a Hospice at Home service for patients with a South Sefton GP.
The new service started in January of this year and has so far provided support to 50 patients and their families. Co-ordinated by nurses Carole Mitchell and Julie Flanagan, with full-time administrator Debbie Edwards, the new team is developing well.
The service has three elements
Crisis intervention – where, at the request of a GP. a Consultant in Palliative Medicine will visit the patient at home and advise on the most appropriate care in order to prevent unnecessary hospital admission and enable the patient to stay at home
Escorted discharge home from Hospice or Hospital – where a Woodlands Hospice at Home Health Care Assistant will accompany the patient home and ensure that everything is in place before the next care agency or District Nurse visit.
24 hour sitting service provided by Woodlands Hospice at Home HCAs seven days a week
Of the fifty patients already referred, admission to hospital was prevented in 44 cases, enabling those patients to remain in their own homes where they wished to be.
Referrals to the service come from GPs, District Nurses and Clinical Nurse Specialists.
Feedback from both patients and referrers has been extremely positive and a full evaluation of the first six months will be carried out in the near future.
