Farleigh launches care home support service

The service enables local care homes to work more closely with the hospice, to improve access to palliative and end of life support for their residents.

Farleigh will be offering clinics with its nurses to discuss the individual care needs of residents. These clinics will empower staff to recognise a person’s changing condition as they approach the end of their life, and provide them with the training and skills to tailor their care to meets these needs.

Care home residents approaching end of life will be supported to die in the place of their choice, reducing unnecessary admissions to hospital. Thanks to expert training with our Education Team, care home staff will feel more confident having difficult conversations with residents and their families about death and dying. Enabling them to work with residents to help them choose if they wish to remain where they are, or be transferred to the hospice for specialist support.

This much-needed project has been made possible thanks to funding provided by Essex Freemasons. Essex Freemasons via the Masonic Charitable Foundation (MCF) generously awarded Farleigh a grant of £33,000 to deliver this service, as part of a £100,000 package of donations from Essex Freemasons and the MCF for hospices across the county.

Samantha Riches Farleigh Hospice’s Care Home Coordinator said: “We are so grateful to Essex Freemasons for providing the funding to allow us to create this project. The grant will help us to create and build relationships with local care homes, provide increased end of life support, and offer access to specialist training.

“Our aim is to provide a dedicated supportive service which we hope will be beneficial to the care home staff, residents and their families. We plan to hold regular care home clinics offering advice from our registered nurses and clinical nurse specialists regarding residents that are approaching end of life. We will identify where further training in palliative care may be needed, and facilitate this through our Education Team.”

One care home that is already benefitting from the programme is Cherry Wood Grange in Chelmsford. Jo Savidge, Director of Nursing at Cherry Wood Grange said: “The Farleigh Hospice team are an invaluable support to us here at Cherry Wood Grange. They always deliver and advocate the highest form of professionalism and we really value their ongoing expertise and guidance. It gives us the skills and confidence to provide exceptional end of life care to our treasured residents when the time comes, ensuring we do what is right for each person at this crucial time. This could include management of symptoms, spirituality, last wishes/rights, family support and much more. We are sure that the Farleigh Care Home Support project will be a huge success and we are very proud to be part of the initiative.”

For more information about Farleigh Hospice’s care home support service visit Care Home Support or email carehomes@farleighhospice.org