Contacts
Contact:
Lesley Oates
Varndean Buildings
Organisation:
Brighton General Hospital
Elm Grove Brighton BN2 3EW United Kingdom
Tel:
01273 265610
07887 994562
Email:
Case study:
11 May 2010
Supportive palliative care nurse for care homes in Brighton and Hove
Key points
- A supportive care nurse is helping to implement the Gold Standard Framework by visiting all care homes (nursing) in Brighton and Hove
- Since she began every resident has died in their preferred place of care
- Staff can struggle to identify when someone is dying – possibly because they care for them every day
Lesley Oates’ works as a supportive care nurse with staff in a group of care homes(nursing) in Brighton and Hove is helping to improve the care of dying residents.
Lesley, who has been seconded to her current role for the last six months by South Downs Trust, spends three days a week visiting care homes (nursing) that are undertaking the Gold Standards Framework (GSF) as well as two elderly mentally infirm (EMI) care homes.
During the time she has worked in the role no residents have had to be admitted to hospital to die and everyone has spent their last days in their preferred place of care.
Lesley’s work involves acting as a role model and helping nurses and carers put the GSF theory into practice.
Uniquely for the south east coast, she also holds a small caseload of patients to whom she can offer practical advice on symptom control in end of life care.
In addition she offers staff critical incident debriefing and reflection sessions.
‘I try to tailor education to the home’s individual needs, whether it is one to one or group,’ says Lesley.
‘I have been involved in monthly syringe driver training sessions encouraging nurses to maintain their syringe driver skills. This does not replace their formal training, but it allows them to look at some scenarios I have prepared and creates discussion around what they would do.
I am also looking at starting training using the Macmillan foundation pack in one of the EMI homes.
‘One of the challenges in this post is that diagnosis of death remains difficult.
Residents often have complex, multiple pathology.This makes it difficult to differentiate between a natural deterioration and the beginning of the dying process.
Experience and education should help us empower staff to pick up on these subtle changes.
This has prompted me to run recognising dying training sessions for staff.’
Lesley is now looking at piloting the pain management tool for people with dementia as well as rolling out the Liverpool Care Pathway in all the GSF homes in conjunction with Rachel Reed, End of Life Care Facilitator /Liverpool Care Pathway Lead.
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