End of life care in South Tyneside
Overview
If you have a terminal illness, or you are approaching the end of your life, it can be a good idea to make advance care plans. This involves thinking about how you want to be cared for in the final months of your life.
If you are not approaching the end of your life, you may still want to think about your wishes for your own end of life care. This could include:
- where you would like to be cared for
- where you would prefer to die
- your wishes for your funeral
- who you would like to make decisions about your care (if you are unable to decide for yourself)
Understanding end of life care
The NHS website has information about what you can expect during end of life care, also known as palliative care, and the kind things you may want to think about.
These include how and where you want to be cared for as well as financial issues.
For information, visit:
Informing your family
Letting your family know about your wishes could help them if they ever have to make decisions about your care.
Knowing that they are acting in accordance with your wishes can remove some of the stress from a very difficult situation.
Community Palliative Care Team
A community Palliative Care Team is based at Clarendon House in Hebburn.
Contact the team on 0191 283 4561 (an out of hours response is available from 5pm - 8.30am)
Training and resources
Below are links to palliative care and end of life care training resources.
There are introductory, intermediate and advanced resources available.
Deciding Right
(Introductory level resources)
Deciding Right is an integrated approach to making care decisions in advance with children, young people and adults.
Northern Cancer Alliance: Deciding right: Education resources for professionals
Skills for Care
(Introductory and intermediate level resources)
Training and resources to develop knowledge of end of life care for health and social care professionals.
Skills for Care: End of life care
Social Care Institute for Excellence
(Intermediate level resources)
These resources focus on:
- Dying well at home
- Dignity in care
- End of life care for people with dementia
Social Care Institute for Excellence: End of life care resources
Macmillan LearnZone
(Introductory, intermediate and advanced level resources)
The Macmillan LearnZone contains learning modules that provide basic, intermediate and advanced training on a number of end of life topics:
- Introduction to end of life and palliative care
- Your wellbeing
- Listening and responding
- Loss grief and bereavement
- HOPE
- Personalised care and advanced planning
- Palliative and end of life
- Managing difficult conversations
- SAGE and THYME - Communicating to people in distress
Macmillan LearnZone: Health and social care professionals
Compassion in dying
(Introductory, intermediate and advanced level resources)
A large archive featuring a variety of factsheets, research and publications around end of life.
Compassion in dying: Resources
E-learning for Healthcare
(Introductory, intermediate and advanced level resources)
An e-learning programme comprising of over 160 interactive sessions which are grouped into nine modules:
- Advance care planning
- Assessment
- Communications skills
- Symptom management
- Social care
- Bereavement
- Spirituality
- Integrating learning
- Specialist content