Case study:

11 May 2010

Hospice at Home Service in Rotherham - developing an integrated specialist palliative health and social care team

Key points

Rotherham PCT and Macmillan Cancer Support have developed a hospice at home service aimed at cutting hospital admissions and ensuring all palliative care patients receive high quality and coordinated care 24 hours a day.

Over the past 3-6 months the service has, with the help of funding from Macmillan Cancer Support and Rotherham PCT, appointed six generic support workers as part of a Supporting Carers scheme, which will allow more people to live and die in the care environment of choice.

Funding has also been agreed a Macmillan equalities link worker focusing on the palliative care needs of black and ethnic minority groups and people with learning disabilities and mental health problems.

It is now bidding for more trained nursing staff as well as a specialist occupational therapist, a physiotherapist and social worker.

It is also working with the Marie Curie Service to examine and research the amalgamation of each service.

The PCT and Macmillan Hospice at Home steering group now meet monthly to discuss project development, outcomes and measures.

As a result of PCT employment of a Nurse Manager/Service lead in the Hospice at Home Service, initial figures have shown a 500% increase in activity.

The introduction of new roles such as community matrons and a British heart failure specialist nurse to work with the terminally ill has helped increase referrals.

There has also been a change in referral criteria to include non-cancer patients.

The launch of Rotherham’s integrated hospice at home scheme followed evidence that the number of people dying unnecessarily in the acute sector was growing.

In addition local public health figures showed that mortality and chronic illness was higher than the national average, with a disproportionatenumber of people from ethnic minority groups, learning disabilities and mental health having palliative care needs.