This new service supports the District Nursing Night Service in providing night sitters for patients in the last 72 hours of their lives, who wish to remain at home. Hospice nurses work closely with the District Nurses already caring for these patients.
This services minimises, where possible, the need for extremely poorly patients to be taken into busy casualty departments (e.g. when relatives are frightened, worried or don’t know what to do and they ring 999).The ambulance service has no alternative, in most cases, but to take these patients to hospital. It is not appropriate for these patients to be lying on hospital trolleys in very busy departments or to experience a journey by ambulance from their homes.
The ‘outreach staff’ undergo training organised by the Hospice, supported by the District Nurses, Macmillan Nurses and the End of Life Team, to suit the needs of the service.
This is a pilot project which started in April 2011 and we aim to care for three patients in any one night. We will be evaluating the service during the rest of the year and will consider whether there is a need to expand this to help more patients.
This new service is to support the patient and their loved ones at a very distressing and difficult time, in collaboration with our colleagues, the District Nurses.
