Projects discussed by respondents as successful
| Project | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Work with schools | ▸ Providing bereavement support with individuals and staff ▸ Engaging pupils in conversations on palliative care, death, dying and bereavement | “Meeting with schools through interested groups e.g. health and social classes” “Work on bringing together school children and hospice patients. Exceptionally positive feedback from all stakeholders, including patients, and greater anticipated benefits from the patients involved” “Our bereavement service work with local schools—this is very good work and means that staff working with schools are able to deal with death and bereavement when it occurs” “Mainly working with schools where a loss of a parent or grandparent has provoked a reaction” |
| Engaging with community groups and organisations | ▸ Providing education and information ▸ Sharing expertise ▸ Raising the service profile ▸ Fundraising Examples of groups included: businesses, faith groups, nursing homes, professionals and other charities | “Engaging with local business to promote hospice care and, in particular, to supporting people to die at home with enhanced specialised nursing support. The media attention relating to this has been of mutual benefit for all parties with continuing supportive relationship developing as part of social responsibility” “Multi-faith session regarding end of life care, cultural beliefs and rituals and where the hospice can fit in”“introduction of LCP [Liverpool Care Pathway] to nursing homes” “We have a community development approach to working with our South Asian community” |
| Awareness raising | Projects to raise awareness of: ▸ The hospice ▸ Health issues, such as cancer ▸ End-of-life care issues | “Community events have been quite successful as people do not expect us to have a stall which we mainly use for dying matters material rather than leaflets about the hospice” “Participating in ‘Doors Open Days’” “Radio—a good communication channel” “We have a resource and information centre in a prime town centre” “We have a community social programme; this means that the general public can access our restaurant, information and social areas at all times” |
| Compassionate communities | Using compassionate community frameworks to develop community support networks | “The hospice adopted ‘The Reaching People Agenda’ which means promoting compassionate communities work” Compassionate communities “has been locally audited for the impact of use of local health services which has revealed downward trend on most measures” |
| Dying matters | Using ‘Dying Matters’ as a focus to raising awareness and engaging the community | “Dying matters events bring the subject to the fore” “Dying matters has enabled us to reach a number of communities, networking with our community colleagues from health, social care and local schools” |