Introduction The ‘Hospice in your Home’ service plans to extend its reach to support more patients in their own homes. This was also an important move forward for the Hospice to achieve its objective to ‘touch’ more people with a palliative diagnosis but not necessarily Specialist needs but those who would benefit from companionship, carer breaks and practical support.

The Hospice in your Home service commenced November 2013 to support patients at home who are considered to be in the last weeks of life. The initial plans included a volunteer element to the team.

Aims The aim of the project is to establish a team of volunteers to be ‘companions’ to patients at home.

Methods Planning and discussion with all Hospice departments to agree to a service that extended Hospice services to patients with ‘non-Specialist’ needs.

The development of a role profile by the Service Development Lead in conjunction with the NAHH NW Managers.

Collaboration with the Voluntary Services Manager to deliver information events and select volunteers for the role. Identification of learning needs with the Education Department and development of an education programme. The volunteers would be integrated with the Hospice in your Home team with a joint policy, protocols, supervision and a code of conduct.

Development of a risk assessment tool and documentation for volunteers to enter visit details in the Electronic Patient Record.

Roll out of the project in June 2015.

Evaluation of the project – measuring patient experience, the numbers and length of visits and identify referral sources.

Conclusion The project will commence in June 2015. The desired outcome is that volunteers can enable the Hospice to reach out to the wider population of palliative patients delivering a supportive service that is seamless between volunteers and the Hospice in your Home team.