Article Text
Abstract
Cumbria covers an area of 6,767 km sq making it the second largest county by area in the country.
Cumbria’s age profile is older than the national average. By 2037 the proportion of residents aged 65+ is projected to increase to 32.9% (projected national proportion is 24%)
Demand for good end-of-life care will increase nationally but there will be greater demand in Cumbria.
Five independent Hospices working across the county:
Hospice at Home West Cumbria
Hospice at Home Carlisle and North Lakes
Eden Valley and Jigsaw
St Mary’s Hospice
St John’s Hospice (Hospice in Lancaster but covering parts of South Lakeland)
Five independent Hospices working across the county:Formation of the “Cumbrian Hospice Alliance” in November 2015.
Aim to:
Demonstrate the reach and impact of hospice care to commissioners and the community
Work in partnership to identify economies of scale and potential opportunities for partnership working
Promote volunteering
Project a professional impression, working together not against each other
Establish hospice care as a solution to future challenges in palliative and end-of-life care
Strengthen understanding of the contribution of hospice care
Memorandum of Understanding signed by chairs of each Board and CEO.
Quarterly meetings to review annual work-plan, regular meetings by executive teams to explore potential for future joint projects.
Partnership work so far:
Joint secondment of an EMIS IT Co-ordinator to ensure consistency in data and reporting. 18 month post, 1 day per week in each hospice
Joint priorities for improvement in hospice Quality Accounts
Joint communications strategy – One hospice message
Joint fundraising events – heads of fundraising working in partnership
Partnership work so far:We hope that the formation of the Cumbrian Hospice Alliance will allow us to encourage our people to work in partnership to unleash the potential to raise funds and provide more joined-up care for the Cumbrian communities we serve.
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work noncommercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/