Background On admission to Woodlands Hospice’s inpatient ward, every patient has an initial assessment carried out by a nurse. A section of this assessment includes a psychosocial and spiritual component but this component was often not fully completed, sometimes resulting in delays to accessing appropriate personalised support for the patient. Our Pastoral Support Worker met with nursing colleagues and members of the Quality and Improvement team to discuss potential ideas for improving the assessment. They agreed we needed to look again at the process for assessing patients’ spiritual needs and the supporting documentation.

Aims

• To support patients to identify what gives their lives meaning and purpose.

• To enhance each patient’s experience of the admission process.

• Further develop holistic therapeutic intervention, individualised to each patient’s needs.

• Support the improvement of mental health and wellbeing for every patient.

Methods

• Conducted a baseline of the original ‘Psychosocial and Spiritual Assessment’.

• Spoke with patients and staff about how the assessment could be improved.

• Piloted a draft, patient-centred, inclusive spirituality assessment.

• Developed a spirituality care plan that reflected the needs of the patient, identified during the nurse admission assessment.

• Developed an e-learning module to support training for relevant staff.

• Re-audited the use of the revised spirituality assessment.

Results Following the results of the baseline audit which highlighted areas for improvement, we developed the ‘HOPE’ assessment model and accompanying care plan. The HOPE approach allows for an open-ended exploration of an individual’s spiritual resources including their belief in organised religion, personal spirituality and beliefs, and their effects and subsequent evaluation.

Conclusion Supporting each patient‘s individual spirituality practice can be beneficial to their overall experience. The HOPE approach is particularly useful and important to understanding a patient‘s spiritual needs, enhancing their experience and can support the development of a personalised care plan.