Last year Prospect Hospice supported around 450 people with life-limiting illnesses at home through our Hospice at Home service, but what if you don’t live in a traditional ‘home’? How do you access end-of-life care in the place you call home? We recognise that home can mean a shared supported house for people who are vulnerable, a care home, a hostel, a B and B, or even a local park. This is where the people most important to them are, where they have lived and felt safe for many years. Our priority is to ensure excellent end-of-life care for everyone, no matter where home is.

We have improved care for the most vulnerable in their place of choice by:

• Identifying people that do not have access to traditional Hospice at Home services. Initially this has included people living in care homes, people living in supported housing with learning disabilities and people who are homeless.

• Working with staff at these organisations to ensure everyone can access the care they need in the place they call ‘home’

• Identifying barriers blocking the delivery of care.

• Designing training (some with formal NCFC qualifications) enhancing the knowledge and skills of staff to support their clients’ needs.

• Creating recognised links to the hospice to improve on-going care.

• Securing local recognition of the lack of end-of-life care for people who are homeless

• Improving patient care across all three client groups by supporting 33 care homes or other organisations and training 214 of their staff.

• Increasing referrals as a result of our training for people who homeless and for dedicated CNS care home referrals from people living shared living accommodation.

• Improving confidence of frontline staff in delivering care for residents in the setting of their choice through support and training. Our care home support has just won a national Charity Civil Society Award for Healthcare.