Throughout Navneet’s clinical Placement she learned many different aspects of palliative care that she will take back to her facility to educate the nursing staff and care worker staff. Support for grief services and details for families was something that was important to Navneet. Supporting families by offering counselling services will be a point to organise back at the facility as well as and sharing resources with families about Advance Care Planning will be attended.
Navneet wanted a focus to be on providing best practice quality patient/consumer directed care for symptom management. Especially focused on after death care – a proposal to support respected residents receive a ‘Guard of Honour’ after death from the team. This “Guard of Honour’ supports the family of the resident as well as offers the care staff who have cared for the respected resident time to grieve their loss as well.
This activity resulted in a change in the team spirit as staff felt they could openly share their emotional loss from the death of the respected resident. The family felt at ease to be part of the guard also and were grateful of the effort that was being made for their family member who has died. One wife of a resident who had died stated “that the guard was her last good bye memory that has been engraved in her heart” – this meant so much to Navneet and the team.
Additionally to the ‘Guard of Honour’ practice a PEACE team was formed. This team meets monthly to assess the care needs of deteriorating residents and reviews end of life care plans for the residents and the families together.
Finally another group decided to support the residents with syringe driver to have a bright bag to cover their devices so they could feel more comfortable with the devices. See the image of some of the bright coloured syringe driver bags created.
Great work Navneet and thank you for being so open to creating positive outcomes for your residents as a result of your placement experience.