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Norfolk palliative care centre scores highly again in national survey

The Priscilla Bacon Centre, a specialist palliative care unit in Norwich, run by Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust (NCH&C) has once again been rated highly by relatives in a recent survey about the care their loved ones received.

Both the inpatient unit and the Community Specialist Palliative Care team, based at the Colman Hospital site in Norwich took part in the latest FAMCARE survey – a national questionnaire used to measure family satisfaction with patients cared for by palliative care services.

The FAMCARE survey measures satisfaction of a range of care such as availability of care, physical patient care, psychosocial care and information giving.

Becky Cooper, Head of Palliative Care at NCH&C said: “This is once again an outstanding achievement and a credit to the whole multi-professional team.

“These results demonstrate that the service provided both within our inpatient unit and by our Community Specialist Palliative Care team, is generally well above that provided by equivalent units throughout England.

“However, as with all our services at NCH&C,  we will continue to strive to improve our services to give the best possible care for patients and carers.

“The comments we received were extremely positive and have been proudly shared with the teams.”

The survey of bereaved relatives, which was undertaken during August/September 2017, saw Priscilla Bacon Centre score higher than the national average in nine areas:

  • The patients’ comfort
  • The way in which the patients’ condition and likely progress has been explained by the Palliative Care Team
  • Information given about the side effects of treatment
  • The way in which the palliative care team respected the patients dignity
  • Availability of the Palliative Care Team
  • The way in which the patients’ physical needs for comfort were met
  • Emotional support provided to family members by Palliative Care Team
  • The way the family was included in treatment and care decisions
  • How effectively the Palliative Care Team managed the patients symptoms

The Community Specialist Palliative Care team also scored higher than the national average in the following areas:

  • Information given about the side effects of treatment
  • The way in which the palliative care team respected the patients’ dignity
  • Palliative Care Team attention to the patients description of symptoms
  • The way in which the patients’ physical needs for comfort were met
  • Availability of the Palliative Care Team to the family
  • Emotional support provided to family members by the team
  • The doctor’s attention to the patients
  • The Palliative Care Team response to changes in the patients care needs
  • Information given about how to manage patient’s symptoms

Dr Carpenter, lead clinician at Priscilla Bacon Centre summarised the findings: “The results from this national survey demonstrates that the service provided by our inpatient unit and Community Specialist Palliative Care team is highly rated by carers.”