Abstract

Palliative day care aims to help patients and carers to live a good quality of life within the limitations of their illness. The last 30 years has seen an exponential growth in the provision of palliative day care places throughout the UK. The purpose built day hospice for patients of Gwynedd and Anglesey that opened in 2002 in North West Wales provides nursing care and a range of complementary therapies. The day hospice can host up to 12 patients a day, for 4 days a week. As time passed and the hospice grew more established, a wider range of therapies were available to patients. The result being, that the patients became overwhelmed by the options and the hospice day lacked structure while the calm, relaxed atmosphere was jeopardised. To combat this and facilitate a simpler choice for patients, the team developed a planned programme of care (POC) that was structured yet permitted the patient to make an independent choice of therapies. The outcomes of implementing the POC are that the calm and relaxing atmosphere is preserved, the patients are not overwhelmed and staff feel that they are giving their patients individualised quality care. The POC carries the potential to be transferred to other day care settings and different patient populations.