Newcastle Hospitals aspires to deliver outstanding palliative and end of life care for all patients of all ages with life-limiting illness.
We put patients and those important to them at the heart of all that we do and involve them in planning and decisions about their care.
End of life care has been defined as care for people who are approaching the end of life.
This includes people who are dying imminently and also those with any progressive advanced condition who are likely to die within the next 12 months.
Palliative care is an approach focussed on improving the quality of life of patients with life limiting illness and their families.
These patients often, but not always, have a prognosis of less than 12 months.
Good palliative care is integral to good end of life care.
Bereavement care is the provision of help and support to bereaved people as an element of good end of life care, at the time of death and during the grieving process.
New Palliative, End of Life and Bereavement All Age Care Strategy 2022-27
The Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care: A national framework for local action 2021-2026 (National Palliative and End of Life Care Partnership, 2021) informs us that end of life care is care that will affect everyone, the living, the dying and the bereaved.
Here at Newcastle Hospitals we have a dedicated team made up of admin, nursing and medical teams working at the Freeman Hospital including the Northern Centre for Cancer Care, the RVI and across all our community services across Newcastle – leading and providing palliative and end of life care for patients and their relatives.
The Palliative and End of Life Care Service have the pleasure of announcing the launch of the Newcastle Hospitals All Age Palliative, End of Life and Bereavement Care Strategy 2022-2027 this week (Monday 12 December 2022).
This strategy is based on the values of the Trust and the national strategy for Palliative and End of Life Care, along with knowledge of local services and needs based on survey, audit and collaboration with local partners.
Trust’s values
It will focus on patients, people, partnerships, pioneers and performance.
