Comment: Controversy around the Liverpool Care Pathway – the fundamental issue is consent
Julia Riley
pp 109-109
The furore around the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) continues. The publicity about it has been noxious. Despite the fact that over 20 reputable organisations have pledged their support to the LCP, the media appear to persist in the publication of misconceptions and inaccurate facts. And the public remains concerned and confused. How has it all gone so horribly wrong?
|
From the Budapest Commitments to the Prague Charter: paving the way for palliative care development
David Oliver
pp 110-111
At the 10th Congress of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) in Budapest in 2007, a campaign was launched, in collaboration with the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC), the World Palliative Care Alliance (WPCA) and Help the Hospices. Known as the ‘Budapest Commitments’, this campaign asked national organisations to define goals for the development of palliative care in their respective countries.
|
Integrated care pathways for dying patients – myths, misunderstandings and realities in clinical practice
Carol Davis and Chrissie Guyer
pp 112-119
Over the last nine months, there has been a mixture of positive and negative publicity about the use of the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient in England. Most coverage in the lay media (newspapers, television, chat rooms and blogs) has been negative as well as very emotive, while the converse is true of that aimed at a readership of health- and social care professionals.
|
Care of the dying and the LCP in England: an international perspective
John Ellershaw, Carl Johan Fürst, Urska Lunder, Mark Boughey, Steffen Eychmüller, Susan Hannam Hodgson, Dagny Faksvåg Haugen, Bridget Marshall, Helen M Walker, Susie Wilkinson, Raymond Voltz and Lia van Zuylen
pp 120-123
Controversy surrounding care of the dying and the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (LCP) in England has the potential to set back progress made in recent years. However, as the debate continues in public policy and the media in England, the LCP’s country of origin, could an international perspective provide the next steps in improving care of the dying?
|
Case study masterclass 68: Managing the swallowing difficulties of an elderly man with dementia
Nathalie Griffin
pp 124-125
Ten years ago, Albert, who is now 85, had a stroke that left him with left-sided hemiparesis, mild oropharyngeal dysphagia and mild dysarthria. Since the death of his wife a few years earlier, he was living on his own.
|
Case study masterclass 67 answers: Suspected opioid addiction in a woman with gastrointestinal stromal tumour
Anthony Gubbay
pp 126-126
|
Palliative care provision in an advanced heart failure clinic: patients’ experiences
Christopher P Primus, Andrew S Flett, Chi-Chi Cheung, Simon Woldman and Martin D Thomas
pp 127-129
Heart failure is a common condition where the heart is unable to pump enough blood to fulfil the body’s requirements, resulting in breathlessness, fatigue and increasing fluid retention. It is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Those with the condition follow a downward spiral of health, the path of which is notoriously unpredictable.
|
Challenges in increasing regional equity in palliative care service provision in Ireland
Peter May, Geralyn Hynes, Philip McCallion, Sheila Payne, Agnes Higgins, Philip Larkin and Mary McCarron
pp 130-133
Ireland has a long tradition of hospice and palliative care.1 In Dublin, Cork and Limerick, centres for the dying are long established, having been founded by religious orders in the late 19th and early 20th century. Nationally, service expansion to hospitals, inpatient hospices and home care services began in the mid-1980s.
|
Book review: Communicating with Children When a Parent is at the End of Life
Laura Nightingale
pp 133-133
Providing support to family members is an essential part of holistic care. The question of how to best support children who have terminally ill parents is particularly challenging, and one that this book aims to address through exploring different concepts and methods of communicating with them.
|
Differentiating clinical audit from service evaluation and research
Dylan G Harris
pp 134-135
Audit has become integral to clinical practice across all healthcare settings. It is defined as ‘a quality improvement cycle that involves measurement of the effectiveness of healthcare against agreed and proven standards for high quality, and taking action to bring practice in line with these standards so as to improve the quality of care and health outcomes’.
|
Fostering hope through palliative rehabilitation
Caroline Belchamber, Mamood Gousy and Caroline Ellis-Hill
pp 136-139
Cancer patients’ need for rehabilitation is growing, as more and more people live with the long-term consequences of disease and its treatment due to early detection and improved treatment regimens. There are a number of people living with incurable cancer who have symptoms that need to be managed for many years, paralleling long-term conditions. Beyond clinical management, a sense of hope is vital in enhancing their quality of life.
|
Core competencies in palliative care: an EAPC White Paper on palliative care education – part 2
Claudia Gamondi, Philip Larkin and Sheila Payne
pp 140-145
This article follows on from part 1 published in the previous issue of the European Journal of Palliative Care and looks at the ten core interdisciplinary competencies in palliative care in more detail. For each competency, a short description of its rationale and focus is followed by a list of its constituents.
|
Book review: The Syringe Driver – Continuous Subcutaneous Infusions in Palliative Care, 3rd edn
Jo Noble-Gresty
pp 145-145
Giving a combination of medicines by continuous subcutaneous infusion via a syringe driver is an important way of managing the symptoms of patients with palliative care needs. This book provides relevant and practical information in a user-friendly style to support this process.
|
Stories from the day hospice: creative writing in palliative care
Chrissie Giles
pp 146-148
As a writer working in biology and medicine, my job brings me into contact with a range of clinicians, scientists and patients. I was looking for a writing project that would give me longer exposure to some of these people and their lives.
|
A day in the life of … Ramesh Thulavavenkateswaran, Specialty Grade Doctor in Palliative Care
Ramesh Thulavavenkateswaran
pp 150-151
St Elizabeth Hospice in Ipswich, Suffolk, has a day care centre and a busy 18-bed inpatient unit (IPU). This is my first day back at work after a week-long family holiday in France. It starts at 7 am, when I leave my home in Chelmsford and drive along the busy A12, listening to music and preparing for the tasks ahead.
|
European insight: Czech Society for Palliative Medicine: training professionals
Ondrej Sláma, Ladislav Kabelka and Martina Špinková
pp 152-155
The Czech Republic belongs to the relatively developed and rich European countries and has a population of 10.5 million inhabitants. Approximately 105,000 people die in the country every year: 25% of malignant tumours, 50% of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, and the remaining 25% of pulmonary disease, liver and kidney disease, poisoning and accidents.
|