Kay reflects on the recent NAHH Annual Conference held in Leeds and several key pieces of work.

Read the article on e-hospice here →

One of our Trustees, Heather Mitchell, featured on Anna King’s radio programme on BBC Radio Gloucestershire on 7th October 2015.

Heather discussed end of life care, hospice at home, as well as our Association.

You can listen to the interview on BBC iPlayer via the link below (by 3rd November 2015) and skipping to 1 hour 11 minutes into the show:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p033534z

The NAHH is delighted to welcome Sue Varvel, Rennie Grove Hospice care as their first President of the charity.

Sue has been the Chair of the association for over 6 years and on the committee for several years preceding this. The NAHH Trustees on behalf of their member services are extremely grateful for the commitment, dedication, passion and leadership Sue has provided and now welcome Kay Greene, Mary Ann Evans Hospice as Chairperson and Rachel McCarty North Devon Hospice as Vice Chair.

The NAHH also welcomes new Trustees Alison Hands – Tynedale Hospice at Home, Lesley Spencer – Princess Alice Hospice, Louise Eagle – Douglas Macmillan Hospice, Helen Birch – Queenscourt Hospice and Heather Mitchell – Sue Ryder Care. Kay Greene would like to express how much the Trustees collectively are looking forward to continuing and taking further forward the excellent work recently overseen by Sue Varvel.

The NAHH welcome a very informative and interesting published article which is a research study evaluating the service of community based palliative care and hospice at home. Our congratulations to the team involved in this work.

To read this article, please download the PDF below:

Service evaluation of community based palliative care and a hospice at home service 

NAHH would like to send a big thank you to all our delegates who very kindly voted for Strathcarron Hospice at Home to achieve a National Lottery Award for Best Health Project.

We are delighted to tell you that they have won!

There is an awards ceremony to be televised on the BBC on 21st September – with the whole Strathcarron Hospice at Home team attending.

Jenny Stevenson, Lead Nurse says;

“Strathcarron Hospice at Home has been funded by the National lottery for 3 years and a further 2 years if they evaluate well . So it is wonderful to be 14th out of 700 to the top 7 and then because of the public vote the winner! The hope is that the publicity gained will benefit all Hospices nationally. This is a wonderful accolade and recognition for the work we do in the Hospice at Home Team here at Strathcarron. In addition it will raise the profile of all Hospices at Home services nationally, bringing hospices out into the community.”

Read more on the National Lottery website:

http://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/project/strathcarron-hospicehome

All of us at NAHH would like to congratulate Strathcarron Hospice at Home for this outstanding achievement – well done!

How one hospice developed a collaborative model of care with statutory services to achieve patient preferences and prevent unnecessary hospital admissions.

To find out more, please download the PDF below:

Hospice to home: a patient-centric multi-professional community approach

Hospice at home is a core primary care service in enabling end of life care choices at home and forms a key component of commissioning intentions across the United Kingdom.

The National Association for Hospice at Home (NAHH) is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) – Registered Charity Number: 1158250 and a membership Association dedicated to supporting and promoting hospice at home services at a local, regional and national level.

The Association is managed by an elected Executive Committee of Trustees who work with our member services and other national organisations to develop service models and partnerships to improve patient care across all settings.

The Association is seeking to expand and develop our Executive Committee to enable progression and significant developments, thereby achieving our aspirations and strategic vision as a CIO. We are seeking expressions of interest from individuals within our member services preferably who have expertise in quality assurance, fundraising, communication, website management and marketing specifically.

If you are interested in becoming part of our newly formed Charitable Incorporated Organisation we would be delighted to hear from you.

Please contact:

Kay Greene, Vice Chair
Via email:

kay.greene@geh.nhs.uk

A discussion with one of our current Trustees will be arranged if required.

We are delighted to announce our 2015 national annual conference:

“The choice to die at home – a reality or an aspiration?

Does hospice at home hold the key?”

The conference will take place at The Met Hotel in Leeds on 1st and 2nd October.

We are in the process of finalising an exciting programme to include keynote presentations from:

Jane Cummings

Chief Nursing Officer – NHS England

Claire Henry

Chief Executive – NCP

Professor Sheila Payne

Emeritus Professor in Plliative Care, International Observatory on End of Life Care, Lancaster University and President, European Association for Palliative Care.

To register for the Conference, click here →

The NAHH executive is delighted to have been awarded registration as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) by the Charity Commission on 15th August 2014. The executive body are the Trustees of the CIO and are currently preparing a two year work plan which includes developing robust governance arrangements now we are successfully registered.

(For e-hospice release)

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has recently expressed concern over the reduction of skilled district nurses in the community across England. This is not a surprise to the National Association for Hospice at Home (NAHH) who has acknowledged this trend and have worked with their members over several years to highlight the need for increased care in the community – especially for those at the end of life.

Many Hospice at Home organisations are dependent upon working in partnership with district nurses and have consistently reported pressures on district nursing teams ultimately increasing the demand on services such as Hospice at Home to support palliative care patients.

In principle this partnership works well aiming to provide a high quality service for patients however when the core service is compromised all resources are adversely affected contributing at times to inadequate care. It would seem cuts and changes to services rarely consider the impact on patients and families or the subsequent domino effect on all provider services involved in patient care. The RCN stated “a lack of any district nurses would not mean the end of home care visits but would lead to a serious disintegration of the community care system”. This is at a time when government targets are focused on caring for patients at home and enabling home deaths. For the government to realise their targets the core or “glue” of community services must be preserved and enhanced to enable other partners to continue to support these services, and those needing them into the future.

The NAHH fully support district nurses in addressing the workforce issues and being equipped to fully meet the escalating demands for their core services.

Sue Varvel & Kay Greene
Chair & Vice Chair
National Association for Hospice at Home
June 20th 2014