A consultant nurse for end of life care at Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust (KCHFT) is to present at a national webinar this week.
Lisa Dennis is to present a quality improvement (QI) project which she carried out at KCHFT and across Kent and Medway, at a Palliative and End of Life Care Network event taking place on Thursday, 9 June. The webinar is open to people working in palliative care, in all roles and to those working in end of life settings.
Lisa worked with Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) on the project. She also worked with three local hospice organisations on the end of life education element of the project: Pilgrims Hospice. Heart of Kent Hospice and Ellenor. It aimed to improve recognition of those who might be at the end of their lives, have sensitive conversations around their emergency care and treatment and to document this, using the ReSPECT process, with ReSPECT standing for Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment.
The project identified that there were inconsistencies across Kent and Medway when it came to end of life care and that adopting a ReSPECT approach would lead to improvements. The QI project aimed to improve the patient experience, reduce unnecessary patient trips to hospital and to standardise patient records across the health and social care system.
Lisa is the chair for the Kent and Medway ReSPECT steering group and is leading the project for KCHFT.