Hospice at Home West Cumbria has developed a new Charter which sets out promises to the West Cumbrian community for support and care throughout their journey with a palliative diagnosis and bereavement.
Hospice at Home West Cumbria (HHWC) encourages feedback from patients, their families and other service users which is important and helps with making improvements to people’s experience of hospice services.
Much of the feedback received is very positive, but the charity wants to provide a wider range of ideas and views to ensure that they respond and improve services where possible.
The idea behind a Hospice Charter came from discussions between HHWC and Healthwatch Cumbria, which is an independent organisation set up to champion the views of patients and social care users in Cumbria.
The intention behind the Charter was to set out what people could expect when they access HHWC services, and then how that could be measured to ensure services are meeting that promise.
Healthwatch Cumbria (HWC) was commissioned to facilitate the co-production of this project to offer expertise in public engagement, and act as an external body with fresh insight into how to help the hospice move forward with gathering feedback.
The project was seen as an opportunity to build on the feedback that is already in place, and develop a charter that reflects peoples individual needs and explaining what HHWC offers by giving information and educating people about the services.
A joint steering group compromising of HHWC patients, service users, staff and volunteers, was led and facilitated by Health Watch. The steering group looked at what the hospice means to people from the perspective of patients, carers, those bereaved as well as staff and volunteers.
They were asked to listen to their thoughts and experiences of delivering and receiving care and understand how feedback is currently gathered and used, and then create a draft of the charter to present for consultation with the wider hospice community.
Brendon Cook, Chair of Hospice at Home West Cumbria said ‘We can’t underestimate the importance of excellent care for those in the last days of life, and support for those people who are closest to them. As a Hospice charity, we want to be able to ensure that our services continue to be of the highest quality into the future, and keep our service users wishes at the heart of everything we do.
The launch of our new Charter sets out our promise to the people of West Cumbria, and what we are striving to achieve.’
HHWC will launch their new charter across their social media platforms on Monday 12 October. Each day next week videos will be shared by staff and volunteers, to highlight the promises that HHWC will make to patients and families they support.
To find out more please visit www.hospiceathomewestcumbria.org.uk, or call 01900 873173.
