Case study:

11 May 2010

Macmillan Palliative Care Scheme in Age Concern Southwark

Key points

Age Concern Southwark is enabling older people with cancer and palliative care conditions to remain at home by providing high quality personal and practical care at all times of day and night.

The service, which is funded by Macmillan Cancer Support and operates in conjunction with other local services, also offers home-based respite care to carers.

Over the last three years the service has enabled 117 people with cancer and other palliative care conditions to remain in their own homes.

Many of these have also been able to die in their own homes as they wished.

The service, which now delivers over 10,000 hours of care a year, is run by a dedicated care coordinator trained in palliative care together with 12 support workers.

The staff are able to provide help with all aspects of personal care alongside social, emotional and practical support, including night sitting services.

Their willingness to work flexibly and carry out a wide variety of tasks to support both the service user and the carer has been key to the reputation they have gained.

The Macmillan funding has enabled the service to provide a flexible, person-centred care service, which is less budget-driven than those funded by local authorities and truly responsive to client needs.

But as that funding comes to an end, the challenge has been to persuade the statutory palliative care teams this is a service they can rely on and therefore want to purchase for patients.

At the moment around two thirds of the income comes from PCT referrals and it is hoped that by 2007-8 the service will be self-sustaining.