PRESS RELEASE

14th September 2012.

Immediate release.

DOCTORS MUST TREAT THE WHOLE PERSON AND NOT FOCUS ON THE PATIENT’S DISEASE

Hospital doctors and general practitioners must stop treating the disease and start caring holistically for the patient with a life limiting condition, a palliative care expert stated today (Sept 14th) at the conference Palliative Care for All. Bridging the Gapwhich was organised by the Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF).

Delivering the keynote address at the one-day conference, Professor Scott Murray from EdinburghUniversitystated that when asked, most doctors and nurses worldwide said they wanted to die of cancer because the services and supports were in place to treat the dying cancer patient. But quality end-of-life care needed to be developed for all people, not just those dying from cancer.

Prof Murray is a practising general practitioner who leads the first Primary Palliative Care Research Group based in Family Medicine in Europe. The group is based in the Centre for Population Health Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.

Prof Murray said there were four dimensions to caring for the person with a life-limiting condition: physical, psychological, social and spiritual. Palliative care for all was not about specialist palliative care for all but involved delivering personalised care which met the four dimensions of care, thinking ahead to prevent unnecessary distress and to anticipate care needs and supporting communities and families by valuing carers.

He went on: “The perception about palliative care is that it is all about cancer and hospices. This needs to be challenged. Some progress has been made internationally in opening people’s minds to the fact that most people who need palliative care do not have cancer. But it needs to be highlighted more in the medical community. Palliative care should be for all illnesses. We also need to start our care for the patient earlier and not just at the terminal stage of the disease. Palliative care should be for all diseases, at all times, all dimensions, all setting and in all countries. People need to die as well as possible.”

Participants at the conference learned about the three action research projects which were funded by the IHF’s Palliative Care for All programme from 2009 to 2012. The aim was to develop methods to identify and respond to the palliative care needs of people with three diseases: advanced heart failure, dementia and respiratory disease.

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Some outcomes of the projects included:

  • More collaboration on symptom management
  • Better communications with joint reviews of patients, multidisciplinary team meetings and staff debriefing following the death of a patient
  • Developed tools such as prompts to refer patients to palliative care
  • Increased access to specialist palliative care services for patients
  • Initiated a range of education sessions including elearning for staff
  • Developed guidance documents to assist staff in person centred advance care planning

The IHF’s Programme Development Manager, Marie Lynch, commented: “We’ve seen increased collaboration, more reflective practice, a change in practice and new protocols in the effort to extend palliative care to people with life limiting conditions other than cancer. The people to benefit from these changes will be the patients who will see their palliative care needs being anticipated and increased access to services that will improve their quality of life. We believe the action research projects will be sustainable and can be replicated in the care pathways offered to patients with other life-limiting conditions. We are now consulting with other disease areas and healthcare NGOs including renal services and neurological conditions about future research projects.”

The Palliative Care for All programme was set up to develop the palliative care skills of staff caring for people with chronic life-limiting diseases in all care settings – nursing homes, hospitals and the community. The aim was to ensure that all patients living with life-limiting conditions could access the appropriate care they needed to live a quality life. The reports of the three actions research projects will be published next month (October).

The advanced respiratory disease project was based at St. James's Hospital, Dublin and involved Our Lady’s Hospice and the Liberties Primary Care Team. The heart failure project was implemented in the Mater and Connolly Hospitals and was supported by St Francis hospice and Northdoc Primary Care Network. The dementia project was based at St Joseph’s hospital, Clare Mental Health Services for Older People with links to Milford Hospice.

The conference was funded by the Irish Hospice Foundation.

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For more information, please contact:

Caroline Lynch,

Head of Communications and Advocacy,

The Irish Hospice Foundation

Tel: 087-123 75 86 or

NOTE TO EDITOR

  • Copies of the presentations from the conference are available on request from Caroline Lynch on 087 123 75 86.
  • Audio tapes featuring short interviews with some speakers from the conference will be posted on the day.