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updated: 22 February 2010
EAPC projects or Taskforces
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Palliative Care in Long-Term Care Settings for Older People
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The aim of this taskforce is to identify and map the different ways of developing palliative care in long term care settings.
In order to do this we will address the following objectives:
- To define long term care settings for older peopel and the nature of palliative care in these settings
- To identify practice development initiatives being undertaken to develop and impact on the provision of palliative care in long term care settings for older people (including action research, transdisciplinary and intervention research approaches within organisational development).
- To map palliative care initiatives in long term care settings for older people across different countries
- To create a compendium of good practice interventions in relation to palliative/end of life care in long term care settings for older people
Project Summary
There is growing interest across Europe and other developed countries in the provision of palliative care in nursing homes for older people and other similar long term care settings. A significant proportion of older people die in such care settings (approximately 20% in the UK). Older people living in such settings often have complex trajectories of dying: many people live with non-cancer co-morbidities, and there is a high prevalence of dementia in this population. This raises challenges for medical and nursing practitioners in terms of their management of physical and psychological symptoms and other aspects of palliative care. Working with long term care settings also requires palliative care specialists to consider issues of organisational change as new initiatives are developed between these two disciplines.
Given the marginalization of these institutions for older people in mainstream society with respect to funding for care, and research, there is a need to maximize our resources and expertise. We recognise the need to share good practice between countries and also between palliative care specialists and long term care practitioners.
At the last three EAPC conferences (Budapest (2007), Trondheim (2008) and Vienna (2009) informal meetings have been held about palliative care in long term care settings attracting between 15 and 30 participants from twelve countries. Two invited symposia on long term care and palliative care have also been on the conference programme in 2007 and 2009.
A website has been established that seeks to promote this work: Palliative Care and Long Term Care Settings for Older People: Worldwide Resources
(See http://www.eolc-observatory.net/information/ltc/) as described in the following publication:
Froggatt K and Heimerl K (2008) Palliative Care in Long-Term Care Settings for Older People: An International Perspective. European Journal of Palliative Care. 15(5): 244-247.
Within the discussions at these conferences we have identified a need to formalise our activity within the EAPC and to undertake a speciifc time limited piece of work that will synthesise much of the activity already being undertaken in this area. We will build our synthesis upon recent work undertaken on the EAPC task force Palliative Care for Older People: Better Practice which identified within its remit initiatives specifically in the long term care sector.
The task-group will undertake the following tasks:
- Define long term care settings and the nature of palliative care in these settings for both the palliative care world and the long-term care world.
- Undertake a documentary analysis of data submitted to the Palliative Care for Older People: Better Practice (preliminary disucssions have taken place to arrange permission for this)
- Undertake a survey of key professionals and organisations to identify initiatives being undertaken to develop the provision of palliative care in long term care settings
- Map these inititiatives by country
- Collate and create a compendium of good practice interventions for long-term care settings and palliative care practitioners
Members
We have identifed the following structure for the taskforce. We will establish a core working group who will be supported by an advisory group and then a wider network of people who will be kept informed, and consulted when information is required.
Core working group
Dr Katherine Froggatt, International Observatory of End of Life Care, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK*
Dr Elisabeth Reitinger, IFF-Palliative Care and Organisational Ethics, University of Klagenfurt, Vienna, Austria*
Dr Katharina Heimerl, IFF-Palliative Care and Organisational Ethics, University of Klagenfurt, Vienna, Austria
Dr Jo Hockley, St Christopher’s Hospice, London, UK
Prof Kevin Brazil, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
Dr. Roland Kunz, Palliative Geriatrics, Hospital Affoltern, Switzerland
Associate Prof Deborah Parker, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Dr. Bettina Sandgathe-Husebø, Department of Public Health and Primary Health Care, Kavli`s Research Center for Dementia, University of Bergen, Norway
*Co-directors of the taskforce
Advisory Group
Membership of the advisory group will be confirmed shortly.
We also have a wider network of at least 50 other individuals who are interested in this area of work and will be involved in the identification of good practice examples and dissemination activities.
Download the Task Force Proposal Form here
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