Most terminally ill patients wish to receive end of life care at home or in a hospice rather than in a hospital. We will provide patients with the widest possibility of choice by funding the continuation of our Hospital2Home project, which improves facilities & local support networks to enable this.

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  • Health/Wellbeing Health/​Wellbeing

The Department of Health’s End of Life Care Strategy research shows that most terminally ill cancer patients would prefer to die at home, yet due to a lack of confidence in or understanding of local support networks & services available, nationally only 18% are actually able to achieve this. The emphasis must, therefore, be on end of life care planning that empowers generalists & community staff to provide high quality home care right up until the final stages of life.

The Royal Marsden has piloted a unique ‘Hospital2Home’ (H2H) service to provide choice & co-coordinated care for patients leaving hospital to die at home. H2H seeks to strengthen the links between our two hospitals & patients’ homes by strengthening the coordination of local services to assist people to receive end of life home care. The service was developed & is led by our palliative care lead consultant, Dr Julia Riley, in line with Professor Lord Ara Darzi's end of life care work stream.

Categories

  • Health/Wellbeing Health/​Wellbeing