How we all work together for local people
Palliative care is provided to patients with life-limiting diseases, when their disease is not responsive to curative treatment and the patient has a limited life expectancy.
It’s provided by generalists (GPs, primary care teams or hospital practitioners) when patients need basic palliative care, or by St Clare Hospice specialists when patients develop complex needs despite the initiation of basic palliative care.
The World Health Organisation defines palliative care as an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual.
Palliative care…
- provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms;
- affirms life and regards dying as a normal process;
- intends neither to hasten or postpone death;
- integrates the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care;
- offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death;
- offers a support system to help the family cope during the patients illness and in their own bereavement;
- uses a team approach to address the needs of patients and their families, including bereavement counselling, if indicated;
- will enhance quality of life, and may also positively influence the course of illness;
- is applicable early in the course of illness, in conjunction with other therapies that are intended to prolong life, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy, and includes those investigations needed to better understand and manage distressing clinical complications.
Find out more about our services and how to access them
You can find out about how we can help local people and how to refer to our services via our website. However, we’d also like to invite you to subscribe to our St Clare email updates, which contain useful information about new and existing services available to your patients, clients and service users, and how you can refer to us. You’ll also receive updates out about exclusive events, education and training available to health and social care professionals in West Essex and East Hertfordshire.
If you could benefit from regular updates on palliative care services and expertise for your local patients, please subscribe below.
Join our team
It’s an exciting time to work at St Clare Hospice. We have developed new roles to help deliver our ambitious strategy of reaching more people with our services, and working more closely with our partners in the health, social care and voluntary sectors.
If you’d like to work at St Clare Hospice, take a look at the roles we currently have available on our Jobs page. Alternatively, if you’d like to find out more, have a question, or would like to arrange an informal chat with a member of our HR team, please get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.
Call us on 01279 773744 | Email us at hr@stclarehospice.org.uk
