St Giles Hospice Quality Account 2017 St_Giles_Hospice_Quality_Account_2017 | Page 14

• I  n September 2016 a general
management trainee on the
NHS Graduate Management
Training Scheme, was based
in Day Hospice for eight weeks
on placement. She was asked
to consider the benefits of Day
Hospice, potential models of care
and business models.
Some key findings were:
• T
 he interventions in Day Hospice
are difficult to categorise into
social, medical or therapeutic as
some cover two or all three and
it is this combination that creates
the holistic care that Day Hospice
offers.
• P
 atients feel that they are
‘normal’ again when they attend
Day Hospice and the feedback
they have about the service is
overwhelmingly positive.
• D
 ay Hospice has a high
number of non-cancer referrals
(39%) compared to other Day
Hospices; the most common of
which are for respiratory and
neurological patients.
Other organisational developments
• I  n May 2016 we launched our
Advice and Referral Centre
(ARC) open to anyone across our
catchment area for advice and
support. This has already been
extended so that we respond to
callers 7 days per week and up
until 9pm in the evening.
• I  n June 2016 we opened 2
Continuing Health Funded beds.
These offer non-specialist end of
life care for people in the last 3
months of life and are fully NHS
funded. We are delighted more
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people are now able to access St
Giles care.
• All GP surgeries across our
catchment are now linked
to a named member of our
community team.
• We have successfully piloted a
Pain Management Programme
and this is now being further
developed.
• W
 e have opened 6 more
Bereavement Help Points across
our catchment which means
anyone affected by bereavement
and needing support is never
more than 48 hours from support.
• Together with the Shaw Health
Care Trust and the National
Council for Palliative Care we
have developed and begun
delivery of Compassionate
Employers, an initiative to
help organisations respond
positively and supportively to
their employees affected by
bereavement and loss.
• D
 ay Hospice offers a 12 week
placement with patients
attending one day per week. The
report highlighted that patients
returning to Day Hospice
could be offered an 8 week
placement as they would already
be familiar with the service
and will have begun Advance
Care Planning discussions.
Therefore from March 2017,
those patients returning to the
service will be offered an 8 week
placement which will be reviewed
individually. This will allow the
service to accept more referrals
going forward.
• A
 dementia support worker
project started in May 2015 in
Walsall and is a joint partnership
with St Giles Hospice Walsall,
Pathways 4 Life (Age UK and
Accord) and Walsall CCG.
This was initially a 12 month
project linked to care homes
and providing training and
signposting to help reduce
hospital admissions. The project
was continued for a further 12
months due its successes, this
time focusing on community as
well as care homes. From May
2017 the project will be recurrently
funded and we continue to
work collaboratively to improve
dementia care for patients in the
borough of Walsall.
• T
 hanks to donations from
families whose loved ones
received our care we have been
able to enhance our environment
by creating a new sensory
rooftop garden and a new
seating area which was a show
garden donated by contractors
on Gardener’s World Live.
• W
 e successfully applied to the
Rank Foundation to improve the
inpatient ward to make it a more
dementia friendly environment
with improved signage.
• W
 e had 5 posters accepted for
the 2016 Hospice UK national
conference covering the diverse
topics of bereavement, pain
management, dementia care,
compassionate communities and
complementary therapy.
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