End of life care
When we think about how we’d like the end of our lives to look, most of us would want to pass away in a dignified, comfortable manner, surrounded by loved ones. At Helping Hands, our end-of-life home care allows our customers to do just this, in a place where they feel secure and content.
Change can be disruptive and unbalancing, as can the process of settling into a completely new environment such as a hospice or hospital. Fully managed end-of-life home care lets our customers stay at home, surrounded by loved ones and able to continue enjoying the familiar, reassuring home environment.
How many stages are there in the end-of-life care pathway?
The End-of-Life Care pathway is an approach to end-of-life care and dying that focuses on the individual and takes a holistic, person-centred approach to their support. It is the recommended approach wherever someone wishes to die – whether it be a hospital, care home or in their own home. The pathway includes a commitment to honest discussions with the person at the start of their journey so that their wishes for care are respected at all stages. This is sometimes also referred to as ‘dying well’.
There are six stages to the pathway which should be followed by clinicians and caregivers, which include accommodating spiritual care for the person, providing holistic emotional support for their family and the carers themselves, and making sure everyone is fully informed at every stage.
How we do palliative care
While some receive palliative care at an inpatient hospice or residential nursing home, it is becoming an increasingly popular choice to get access to palliative care at home. Many individuals want to stay in an environment where they feel most comfortable as a way of managing emotional responses to their symptoms; it’s often referred to as hospice care at home.
As a Helping Hands palliative care assistant, you may be expected to provide services such as:
- Personal care and assisted livingsuch as helping with bathing, dressing and toileting
- Continence care, including changing continence pads and managing stomas and catheters
- Medication support, including helping to administer medication – sometimes including more complex prescriptions
- Helping customers with pain management
- Mobility support, including hoist transfers
- Household duties such as vacuuming, cleaning, cooking, dusting and doing the laundry
- Preparing and cleaning up meals
- Looking after your customers’ pets – this may involve feeding, exercising and taking to the vet
- Running errands, such as collecting prescriptions or doing the shopping
- Providing loving companionship and being a friendly, reassuring presence
Training
At Helping Hands, we pride ourselves on offering all new carers award-winning training which prepares them to provide our customers with specialist palliative care. If you’re joining us with absolutely no care experience, you don’t need to worry about being thrown in at the deep end – we’ll provide you with all the training you need, as well as providing you with the chance to shadow more experienced carers while you learn the ropes. All you need is a willingness to learn and a desire to be the very best carer you can be.
Palliative care assistant training
When you start as a carer with Helping Hands, the first thing you’ll do is undertake our comprehensive training programme. You’ll receive expert tutelage in how to provide first-rate palliative care, with modules including moving and handling, first aid, dementia care, medication, health and safety, and so much more. You don’t need any formal qualifications to become a palliative care assistant – just a positive, can-do attitude and a passion for helping others.
Counselling training for palliative carers
As well as all the practical elements of palliative care, we also offer customers counselling to provide emotional support and help them prepare for end of life. There are a number of relevant counselling courses, both online and physical, that help carers to provide an enhanced palliative care service. Counselling training will increase your understanding of the conclusion of life, and how to encourage open, honest conversation about difficult topics.
Palliative care advanced training
We provide all of our carers with a working knowledge and expertise of palliative care. Furthermore, some of our more experienced palliative carers participate in a more focused training programme that covers palliative and end-of-life care practices. Having this enhanced knowledge gives you the ability to provide a higher quality of palliative care to people with more complex needs, and gives our customers peace of mind about the standard of care we’ll be providing them with.