Palliative care education
We have completed this year’s series of palliative care education sessions and they have all evaluated well. The four sessions for GPs and Community Nurses focused on sensitive communication around documentation, the electronic palliative care summary and Just in Case boxes/symptom management and the quality of the education was rated as excellent or good.
In November we ran our joint health and social care session on palliative care for non-cancer conditions with 52 delegates. People praised the content, presenters and sensitive handling of the topics. We agreed that our next joint session will have more content led by social work and home care staff.
We also ran two evening sessions for GPs covering new drugs in palliative care and recognising the end of life in respiratory patients. The evaluation is currently being written up, but verbal feedback was positive.
On-line palliative care training
NHS Education for Scotland has created a palliative care portal to access a variety of educational resources. It aims to develop knowledge and understanding of the principles of palliative and end of life care and advance care planning.
One of the resources included on this portal is the Department of Health e-End of Life Care for All (e-ELCA) programme. Although developed in England, anyone in Scotland can request access to these modules and assess their learning progress. The home page provides details of how to apply for access.