Lindsey Lodge Hospice & Healthcare has recently provided training for social care staff at Myos House Extra Care Dementia Housing Scheme in Scunthorpe, to help them support tenants to make plans for their future care.
Lindsey Lodge Quality and Education Lead Sally Watson and Operational Matron Karen Andrew provided Advance Care Planning training to a team of 15 Ongo staff at Myos House, on Warren Road, which provides 25 two-bedroom apartments for people living with dementia and their carers to live independently and remain living together even when care is required.
Sally Watson said: “This training is all about developing the confidence and communication skills to enable care staff to have conversations with people who are living with a serious, or life limiting illness, about considering and recording their preferences and wishes for their future care and treatment, particularly if they become unable to make these decisions for themselves.
“This can be challenging because of the sensitivities involved, but recording a person’s wishes, beliefs and values about future care, guides decisions about best interests of the individual, if they lose the capacity to make decisions at a later date, and may avoid crisis interventions that are not required.”
The training centres on understanding how to complete a ‘My Future Care Plan’, which is a document that was devised by Lindsey Lodge in partnership with North Lincolnshire Council, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the former North Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group.
The document, although not legally binding, enables individuals to record their beliefs, values and wishes regarding their health care and personal wishes, by talking about them with family, friends and health and social care professionals.
Karen Andrew said: “From years of experience of working in end of life care, we recognise that living with chronic and life limiting conditions can leave people feeling powerless as though the condition controls them, and that when an individual becomes unwell, sometimes decisions need to be made quickly and individuals may at that time feel overwhelmed or too poorly to express their preferences for care.
“This is why considering potential decisions ahead of time allows for them to express and document what they would want to happen to them in certain circumstances. We have seen the empowering effect advance care planning can have on an individual. A process of giving back a degree of control about what does or doesn’t happen to an individual if they become unwell. We also understand how valuable this is for their families and carers when they are needed, in ensuring their loved one’s wishes are carried out.”
More information about Advance Care Planning can be found
here
