PILOT STUDIES ARE UNDERWAY

Developing an end-of-life care pathway to improve nurses' bereavement care
An article in the Nursing Times of 13 January 2009 by Dawn Chaplin, MSc, DipC, RGN, head of bereavement serives at Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust in Birmingham, on the development of a pathway to improve nursing care of dying patients and their families.

ABOUT THE BEREAVEMENT PATHWAYS PROJECT
Recognising a need
The Bereavement Pathways Project started – as many initiatives do – with a meeting of interested people who recognised a need at grass roots level.  Tony Brookes, Chair of the Bereavement Services Association, and Catherine Betley, Service & Development Manager at Cruse Bereavement Care, agreed that when someone dies, a clearer pathway from NHS based bereavement services into support services in the community would greatly benefit bereaved people.  An application to the Department of Health for funding for a three year project to help achieve this outcome was successful. A steering group was formed, a project officer appointed, and the Bereavement Pathways Project is underway. There is an overview of activity in the presentation here.

Objectives
One objective of the project is to establish a key partnership between the NHS and the voluntary sector by linking hospital-based services, particularly those in acute trusts, with those based in the community which provide a range of services, including longer term support for bereaved people. Another is to increase access to services for bereaved people whoever they are, however and wherever a death occurred.  Research carried out to inform the project, with the context and the findings, can be read here.

Hearing from the voluntary and community sector
There is a survey questionnaire for community organisations involved in bereavement care and support. We welcome these throughout so if you haven't completed one and would like to, the community consultation paper is available here.

The key Department of Health advice document “When a Patient Dies”, has contributed significantly to the development of bereavement services within the NHS by highlighting areas of good practice, and it is anticipated that the development of an effective bereavement pathway will illustrate additional good practice within the voluntary sector. This may lead to additional recommendations to support closer and more effective working across all sectors; thereby providing both an overview of the current awareness of guidance in the NHS and community bereavement services, providing an evaluation of the impact and implementation of those guidelines across all sectors, and enabling further demonstration of good practice to be highlighted, and possibly incorporated, in any future DH advice.

Good practice and participation
Throughout the life of the project and beyond we will be collecting examples of good practice with a view to sharing this within the bereavement sector generally through articles and events. To this end there were two one-day stakeholder events in Birmingham and London in spring 2008 and there will be several pilots in areas of England to identify good, and also not so good, practice and test proposals, improvements and innovations. Jill Sanders, who is the project officer, would very much like to hear from everyone interested in the project.
Please contact jill.sanders@cruse.org.uk or call 020 8939 9534.

BRIDGING THE GAP - a presentation about the project to the International Conference in Australia, July 2008.
Two members of the steering group presented the Bereavement Pathways Project at the 8th Annual International Conference on Grief and Bereavement, held in Melbourne. Dawn Chaplin, vice-chair of the Bereavement Services Association and Head of Bereavement Services at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham, and Debbie Kerslake, Chief Executive of Cruse, made the presentation jointly.

The publication of the Strategic Health Authority Visions in May and June 2008 articulates the priority government gives to end of life care and the needs of bereaved people - a commitment that should benefit the Bereavement Pathways Project which, in turn, may be able to help realise some of the aspirations, which include.

Create and extend support services for all families and carers, including bereavement support (East of England)
Better informed and supported families and better trained staff to deal with advanced care planning (Yorkshire and the Humber)
Ensure that wishes are respected and dignity preserved and identify what matters most to families and carers (South West)
Appointment of a key worker to co-ordinate care and assess, support and review the needs of patient and carers (South Central)
A care model that reaches out into the bereavement journey by as much as a year (North West)
Bereavement risk assessment and ongoing bereavement follow-up (North East)
Respect for beliefs and cultures, and care of the bereaved (West Midlands)
End of life care services that are patient focused and able to meet individual needs, including the needs of carers, and recognised care pathway for bereavement (East Midlands)
Local champions for patients and carers (South East Coast)

Find all the SHA Visions and read Lord Ara Darzi's Review on the NHS website here.