Feedback sought on COVID-19 palliative care guidelines

Feedback is currently being sought from professionals about the effectiveness of End of Life Guidance when a Person Is Imminently Dying from COVID-19 Lung Disease.

Paediatric Palliative Medicine Education Network

New patient medication information leaflets have been added to the Scottish Palliative Care Guidelines website, including information about Buprenorphine; Fentanyl patch; Ketamine; Oral morphine; Oral oxycodone; Short acting fentanyls; T34 syringe pumps.

The Pandemic Kindness Movement was created by clinicians across Australia, working together to support all health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have curated resources and links to valuable services to support the wellbeing of the health workforce.

Sharing current Scottish Practice

The SPPC Autumn Season 2020 featured an online poster exihibition of 64 posters, sharing work and research underway across Scotland. Each month, our blog focuses on the content of a few of these posters. This month, we focus on:

• A flying start: Development, rapid adaptation and collaborative work through a newly established Scottish Network for Acute Palliative Care: SNAPC
• A place of esKape: Providing support to frontline healthcare workers during the coronavirus pandemic
• ACCORD through COVID – continuing to Care
• Achieving evening support for carers: How an evening support programme enabled carers to have the time to attend and the benefits achieved
• An audit of end-of-life documentation and assessment in a tertiary teaching hospital
• An evaluation of a new service for patients who present with persistent breathlessness
• And the choir sang on: How and why the Kilbryde Community Choir continued singing together during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Anticipatory Care Planning in care and nursing homes in Inverclyde

Sharing your practice

The SPPC hosts a blog as a platform for people to share examples of current Scottish palliative care practice that might be of interest to the palliative care community more widely. If you know of work underway that might be relevant for sharing on our website, please email: rebecca@palliativecarescotland.org.uk

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Improving the Cancer Journey

Macmillan Cancer Support has published findings from the second evaluation report on Improving the Cancer Journey in Glasgow. These are available in full length and brief report format on the Macmillan website.

Hospice support of palliative care in prisons

Caring, sharing, preparing and declaring: how do hospices support prisons to provide palliative and end of life care? A qualitative descriptive study using telephone interviews by Chris McParland and Bridget Johnston.

Public health palliative care

The impact of public health palliative care interventions on health system outcomes: A systematic review Anna Collins, Julia E. H. Brown, Jason Mills and Jennifer Philip.

Describing the role and practices of end-of-life doulas

Describing the end-of-life doula role and practices of care: perspectives from four countries Marian Krawczyk and Merilynne Rush.

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New Council member

We are pleased to welcome Jacqui Macrae to the SPPC Council. Jacqui is Chief Nurse for the City of Edinburgh Integrated Joint Board. A full list of Council members is available here: SPPC Council Members.

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Palliative Care and Covid-19 Series Briefing Notes – Compilation

The World Hospice and Palliative Care Alliance (WHPCA) has published a compilation collecting together 27 Briefing Notes prepared for the Global Palliative Care and COVID-19 Series developed between April and September 2020 in response to the emergency of the pandemic and its unprecedented effects on patients and palliative care providers around the world.

Tell us once

A short film has been launched providing information about the UK Government's Tell Us Once service, which is designed to help people inform many government organisations and public sector pension providers, just once, of a death.

North Ayrshire: A case study on kindness

The Carnegie Trust has published North Ayrshire: A case study on kindness, a report of work undertaken explore what it would mean to embed kindness across a local authority, and what that might achieve.

National Day to Unite in Memory

Marie Curie are calling for the UK Government to recognise the collective sense of loss brought by covid-19 and to remember and celebrate the lives of the people who’ve died, through a National Day to Unite in Memory on 23 March 2021, the first anniversary of the start of the UK lockdown

Scotland 2030: a positive view of our future

Scotland's Future Forum has published Scotland 2030: a positive view of our future, a report of the Scotland 2030 Programme, which was an investigation into the kind of country Scotland should be in 2030 and beyond. The report includes a chapter focusing on 'Death and Dying' and a chapter focusing on 'Growing Older'.

Cost of funerals

SunLife has published its annual Cost of Dying report.

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A Practical Guide to Effective Non Medical Prescribing for Pain

Organised by Healthcare Conferences UK. 26 January 2021, online. More information is available here: weblink. 10% discount with code hcuk10sppc.

Cross Party Group on Palliative Care

The next meeting of the Cross Party Group in the Scottish Parliament on Palliative Care will take place on Tuesday 23 February. More information is available here: weblink.

Caldicott Principles & Information Sharing in End of Life Care

Organised by Healthcare Conferences UK. 25 February 2021, online. More information is available here: weblink. 10% discount with code hcuk10sppc.

Making charity applications for individuals

Organised by Down to Earth. 10 March 2021, online. More information is available here: weblink.

Suffering, Death and Palliative Care

Organised by IQ Healthcare. 16-19 March 2021, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. More information is available here: weblink.

Let's talk about funerals

Organised by Down to Earth. 15 April 2021, online. More information is available here: weblink.

Raising money for funeral costs

Organised by Down to Earth. 13 May 2021, online. More information is available here: weblink.

Child Bereavement UK webinars

• Understanding Loss, Grief & Bereavement
• Maintaining Wellbeing in Working with Loss, Death & Grief
• When a Child Dies: What families have taught us
• Supporting Grieving Children
• Pregnancy Loss and the Death of a Baby: Supporting Parents
• Supporting Bereaved Children and Young People
• Teenagers and Bereavement
• When a Child Dies – Supporting Parents & Families
• Supporting grieving families as a funeral director
• FREE Doctors Training: Maintaining wellbeing in working with loss, death & grief
• Bereavement Awareness Training for Educational Professionals
• Bereavement in the Workplace

A full programme is available on the Child Bereavement UK website.

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