Specialist Palliative Care
The role of our Specialist Palliative Care Team is to actively care and to try and improve the quality of life for our patients, and their families, who are facing life threatening illness. Palliative care enables patients to live as well as possible at the end of life.
Caring for people at the end of their lives is an important role for many health and social care professionals. One of the key aspects of the role is to discuss with individuals their preferences regarding the type of care they receive and where they wish to be cared for” (Mike Richards 2007)
End of life care helps all those with advanced, progressive, incurable illness to live as well as possible until they die. It enables the needs of both patient and family to be identified and met during the last phase of their life and into bereavement. It includes management of pain and other symptoms and the provision of psychological, social, spiritual and practical support (National Council for Palliative Care 2006).
What our service does
The Specialist Palliative Care Teamworks within the outpatient and inpatient setting at the Liverpool Heart and ChestHospital
As a team we aim to control pain and other symptoms whilst offering emotional support, relevant information, active referral and signposting pathways of care during difficult times. We aim to compliment the hospital and primary care teams in providing specialist palliative care.
The Specialist Palliative Care Service at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital comprises:
A variety of staff from a range of disciplines work within the team including:
- Associate Specialist Palliative Care (Clinic Friday at LHCH)
- Specialist Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialists
- Specialist Palliative Occupational Therapist
- Specialist Palliative Social Workers
The combined services aim to:
- Provide relief from pain and other distressing symptoms
- Integrate the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care
- Provide support early in the course of an illness in conjunction with other treatments
- Maintain maximum independence for patients with their activities of daily living
- Provide support to help patients to live as actively as possible until death and to help the family to cope during the patient’s illness and in their own bereavement
- Provide support to cancer specific multidisciplinary teams
- Provide educational programmes for hospital staff
- Take a lead within the Trust to provide End of Life Care planning
What can we offer patients?
- Advice on pain control
- Advice on control of other symptoms such as breathlessness, sickness, constipation and poor appetite.
- Provide support for rapid discharge of patients at the end of their life
- Support and advice for inpatients and outpatients and their carers
- Advice and support to other health care professionals
How to contact our team
Members of staff in the hospital can contact the team on behalf of patients or carers and can contact the team directly. Staff from the team will visit inpatients and outpatients as and when requested.
The team is available Monday – Friday, 9am to 5pm.
Call 0151 600 1630 /0151 600 1247 or via the hospital switchboard on 0151 600 1616.