Our deputy manager Anna Holdstock and Debbie Day, the home’s head end-of-life lead, participated in a prestigious, high-level industry discussion on palliative and end-of-life care recently.
Anna and Debbie, who has regularly won (or been a finalist for) the East of England Great British Care Awards’ Palliative/End-of-Life Award, and was the national winner for 2019, were among 15 panellists who attended Care Talk magazine’s roundtable forum at London’s Supreme Court.
The other attendees at the half-day event included Martin Green, Chief Executive of Care England and Deborah Sturdy, Chief Nurse for Social Care, plus representatives from the Gold Standards Framework, Royal College of Nursing, Nursing & Midwifery Council, charities, hospices and providers of both residential and home care. All had been carefully selected by the magazine’s editor, Lisa Carr, because of their specialist knowledge.
The panel lost no time in getting to grips with such important questions as ‘what does a good death look like?’ and ‘how can society acknowledge dying as a natural part of the human experience?’ The discussions also covered how to address a general lack of understanding of palliative/end-of-life care and encourage open conversations, facilitate a person-centred approach and ensure that our health and social care systems protect someone’s right to the death that they would choose.
In fact, these are all issues that are familiar to the Cedars home team, and Anna and Debbie readily shared the home’s practice.
“We described how we care for residents at this crucial time in their life journey. We already approach dying in a way that many other care providers do not, and sharing our best practice among the other attendees highlighted that we are good leaders in that area,” says Anna. “We really were very proud to represent Cedars and be part of this interesting discussion on the future of palliative and end-of-life care.”
“Here at Cedars our view is that death should be seen as another important part of life’s journey, just as birth is,” says Debbie.
“These are normal, natural events in someone’s life. We also believe in giving someone the death they want and then it’s all about getting those arrangements in place well ahead of time. So it’s important that discussions around it should not be left until the last moment. The person’s wishes are paramount and should be respected at all times.
As Cedars’ end-of-life lead, Debbie is proactive in initiating such discussions soon after a new resident arrives at the home. If someone is living with dementia, Debbie speaks with residents’ families and involves the local palliative care team.
“Once we know what someone wants, it’s about getting the right care in place at the right time, including the medical side of things, and working with the GP and palliative care team.”
Debbie also is a qualified ‘Soul Midwife’, as is Caron Sanders-Crook, the home’s operations manager. Soul midwives are non-medical companions who help the dying person towards and through a calm and gentle death.
“It’s such a special moment,” says Debbie, “and completely unique to each person. Sometimes a person wants to remember a special moment in their life or their last memory of a someone really dear to them. We help a dying person to recreate that in their mind during their last moments. One resident who loved trains visualised that he was catching a train with a someone he loved. Basically, people want to do it their way, and we help facilitate that.”
This work contributed towards Cedars’ re-accreditation in 2021 as part of the National Gold Standards Framework, which sets out the required standard of care for people nearing the end of their life. The home so impressed the assessors that it achieved a near perfect score, earning a platinum award. The home is preparing for re-accreditation later this spring.
The output of the roundtable discussion is encapsulated in a paper entitled ‘ Living a Good Life at Every Stage: The role of palliative and end of life care in enabling a good death’ which will be circulated to the industry and used as the basis of an article in a future issue of Care Talk magazine.
Lisa Carr, editor of Care Talk, says: “Care Talk were thrilled to host a roundtable discussion around palliative and end-of-life care within social care settings.
“This pivotal event enabled us to collectively address complex challenges and identify innovative solutions aimed at enhancing the quality of care for individuals in their final year of life.
“We deeply value the input of our panellists, whose insights and expertise were instrumental in shaping the discussion and facilitating the compilation of a paper on this critical area of social care.”
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