A learning disability project led jointly by Nottinghamshire Healthcare and Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has gone through to the finals of the NHS Innovation Awards and Showcase 2011.
The project, ‘Improving end of life care for people with learning disabilities’, addresses the national end of life care target for people with a learning disability.
The project aims to:
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Improve support for mainstream professionals supporting an individual with a learning disability during end of life care;
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Decrease emergency admissions to hospital by planning support and care at an earlier stage;
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Improve communication across service boundaries and joint working;
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Support residential staff to provide care to an individual with a learning disability during end of life, thereby reducing inappropriate use of health services.
The project has already received excellent feedback with comments including: “I am now able to help much more and know where to get support”; “it has given me more confidence in dealing with end of life issues”.
The project has been led by Gemma Del Toro, Learning Disability Health Facilitator, Nottinghamshire Healthcare and Claire Henley, Learning Disability Nurse Specialist, Sherwood Forest Hospitals.
The work has a local focus across Nottinghamshire and has been achieved by working with colleagues across palliative care, primary care and secondary care and people with learning disabilities.
The project has included developing an end of life pathway for people with learning disabilities using the Nottinghamshire pathway for all diagnoses. The pathway is an electronic tool with links to the mainstream pathway and to all identified tools, service directories and documents relating to learning disabilities. The team has produced a number of resources to support the pathway including a DVD about receiving bad news to raise awareness of how to support someone with a learning disability.
Debbie Abrams, General Manager Specialist Services, Nottinghamshire Healthcare said: “Many congratulations to the team on the shortlisting of this project. This is really well deserved and is a credit to their dedication and hard work.”
Susan Bowler, Executive Director of Nursing and Quality for Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: "It’s fantastic news that the team has been recognised for all their hard work. Our Trust provides the highest quality end-of-life care by providing dignity in a caring environment. We want our patients to talk about ‘a good death,’ and how will we respect and honour their wishes at the end of their life”.
The team will find out if they are winners at an awards ceremony on 22 September.
