Cancer specialist nurse leads palliative care improvement project

Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is implementing the SWAN model of care scheme, which aims to ensure individualised and consistent care for end-of-life patients.

“Provision of excellent palliative and end-of-life care is crucial”

Pip Page-Davies

SWAN – Signs Words Action Needs – is a national initiative that the specialist orthopaedic trust recently adopted and which is also used by a number of health service trusts around the country.

It requires improving signposting to information and support for end-of-life patients, and better communication with the patients and their families.

As well as these, the trust has used SWAN to ensure the provision of a multi-faith chaplaincy team for support to patients, as well as additional provisions such as open visiting, free parking for family members, food and drink for them and “comfort packs” for carers.

The trust, which is based near Oswestry in Shropshire, has created “dedicated SWAN boxes” for all of its wards, which contain resources for staff like care plans.

For patients, these boxes contain information leaflets on the care an end-of-life patient will receive for both themselves and their loved ones.

Pip Page-Davies, a Macmillan oncology nurse specialist, has led on the improvement of end-of-life at Robert Jones and Agnus Hunt Hospital via the SWAN scheme.

“Provision of excellent palliative and end-of-life care is crucial,” Ms Page-Davies said. “While the number of deaths in the trust may be low, the delivery of excellent care is very important to us.

“We have just one chance to get it right for each patient at the appropriate time. [SWAN] will be valuable to all staff helping to provide individualised end-of-life care to patients,” she said.

“The model aims to give support patients as they approach the end of their lives, by ensuring a personalised approach so they are comfortable. It also allows the nursing teams to do things differently in these circumstances.”

The League of Friends, a volunteer charity, has also supported the scheme by providing knitted hearts for staff to give to patients’ family and friends.

Robert Jones and Agnus Hunt chief nurse and patient safety officer, Paul Kavanagh-Fields, added: “I am so proud that we have adopted the SWAN model of care across the organisation.

“Embedding SWAN across the organisation is not only going to make a crucial difference to our patients and their families, but it will also ensure that our staff are supported to deliver a high standard of care to patients and their families at an extremely difficult time.

“I’d like to say thank you to Pip for all her hard work over the past few months in leading on this work – she has done a fantastic job,” he said.