An expert has hailed the care provided by a hospice as a shining beacon for the UK.
St Kentigern Hospice in St Asaph earned the glowing praise after setting up the the only nurse-led hospice probably in the Western Hemisphere
Pioneering Dinah Hickish, the Senior Advanced Nurse Practitioner at St Kentigern Hospice is spearheading the initiative which is attracting interest from across the UK and even across the globe.
St Kentigern is an eight-bed in patient hospice which has 15-place day therapy facilities and provides “excellent” end of life care for those with life-threatening and terminal illness, but has to rely on 80 per cent of its income from the generous donations of the public.
The nurse-led model has attracted praise from Dr Heather Richardson National Clinical Lead for the UK-wide Help the Hospices, who believes this ground-breaking model could be rolled out across Britain.
She said: “I see real opportunities for nurse led respite care and palliative rehabilitation, particularly when such an approach is part of a multi-disciplinary approach to assessment of needs, plans for, and delivery of care.
“With anticipated increases in demand for care, requirements for increasingly flexible models within a context of finite resources, hospices must think carefully about how they maximise on the skills and expertise of their clinicians.
“Nurses can offer valuable leadership, particularly in the support of people whose main requirements are those of care, rather than diagnosis. The way that nurses lead care which “holds” patients and their families at times of stress and challenge is particularly valuable.
Mum of four and grandmother of one Dinah, 53, who lives in Tremeirchion, said: “The role of the Advanced Nurse Practitioner was created over a decade ago and allows nurses to do many of the tasks that their medical colleagues do.
“I can admit patients, clinically assess them, initiate a programme of care and as a non-medical prescriber I can prescribe the treatments necessary for them.
“There are a lot of hospices that are employing Advanced Nurse Practitioners, now. That is happening more and more, but we’re pretty unique at the moment because we’re nurse-led.
“I think the nurse led hospice is definitely pushing the boundaries of what can be done with the role. I think that the Advanced Practitioner role works exceedingly well in the hospice environment.
“There’s been a lot of interest in the nurse led model. We’ve even had a hospice from New Zealand get in touch to ask about it.
“We’ve broken barriers – and still are – but there remain some who are still a little sceptical. However, referrals arrive from consultants, general practitioners as well as the specialist palliative care team, so they appear to have confidence in how St Kentigerns Hospice operates
“Interestingly, perhaps because we are all nurses working together in the inpatient unit the amount of patients we look after is much greater, than under the previous model. Our bed occupancy is actually much higher than it was when we were run by a medical director.
“The emphasis is completely and utterly patient centred, alike other providers of palliative care. We are a small facility, which gives us the capacity to have a high ratio of nurse to patients. This gives us the flexibility to be able to respond to and be accessible to patients individual needs promptly and without delay. “We spend an awful lot of time speaking with relatives, and giving support to the families as well. That’s a major part of what we do.
“When a patient becomes palliative our job is to make the most of what a person’s resources are, and it is our privilege to be able to do so.”
For more information about the hospice and how to make a donation go to www.stkentigernhospice.org.uk
