Extended Out of Hours Care Provides Comfort to End of Life Patients

NHS Berkshire West has extended its Out of Hours Nursing Service to provide help and support for patients who are at the end of their life and who wish to remain in their own home.

Patients or relatives can now call the service overnight for help and advice on controlling symptoms such as pain, sickness, breathlessness and anxiety.

Kim de Sousa, Service Manager for Wokingham Intermediate Care and Out of Hours Nursing said: “Night time can be the worst time for patients and their relatives when their usual support services are unavailable – and since we started offering this service, the response has been excellent.

'Patients and families are reassured that there is experienced nursing support available should they need it. It has meant that many patients have avoided unplanned hospital admissions as they are able to ask for help from our team when necessary.'

In addition to preventing inappropriate hospital admission, the service also facilitates hospital discharge and links in with Marie Curie nurses providing help with cancer care for local patients.

A new report* from the National End of Life Care Intelligence Network (NEoLCIN) shows that age, gender, cause of death and socio-economic factors affect where people die. The South East region has one of the lowest proportions of people dying in hospital (56 per cent, compared to London’s 66 percent and the West Midlands’ 60 percent).

The service extended its hours in March to be available from 11pm until 7am and operates seven days a week, covering the whole of the NHS Berkshire West catchment area.

To benefit from the service, patients should be referred by their GP or other healthcare professional and be in need of palliative end of life care and their family or carer also need to be aware of their diagnosis.