To me, there are two key points. Firstly, the natural element. One of the many issues that has arisen from the use of the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) in the UK is the fact that many families believe that their loved ones were put on this pathway before they were ready to die. Prior to my father’s end-of-life, I had fretted for years about how we would know when his time was coming and what it would be like. Having now lived through that experience, I understand the crucial differences in a person’s condition that can provide a clear indication that they will soon pass away.
Given how often care professionals see people in the last stages of life, it seems extraordinary that anyone would misjudge this situation. Of course as we now know, the LCP has become tainted by suggestions that it was actually used to hasten death, free up beds and save money. Indeed, with hospitals having been given financial incentives to put patients onto the LCP, it is clear that the whole premise of trying to do good for patients at the end of their life has become lost in favour of very dubious motivation.
Having established that someone is naturally dying before implementing any specific end-of-life care practices, the second most important element is ensuring that their end-of-life care is exactly what all of their previous care should have been – person-centred, compassionate, dignified and respectful. One of the reasons I wrote so candidly about my father’s end-of-life was precisely because I felt that he had what I would describe as a good death. The manner in which he was cared for, and we were cared for as his family, is I believe an example to everyone.
Clearly we were fortunate in being able to find my dad a bed in a care home that were prepared to look after him for however long he had left. It is likely to be far more difficult, and potentially impossible, to provide the same experience in a hospital. Hospices are wonderful, but many are not prepared to admit people who have dementia due to concerns about how they would manage the disease.
In truth, these concerns are generally not as great as hospices might imagine. Someone who is living with dementia and nearing the end of their life is unlikely to be disruptive, aggressive or exhibiting other behaviours that they could find difficult to cope with (for example walking). Communication difficulties are likely to be severe, but I would expect hospices to have extensive experience in coping with these given that medications and the effects of all kinds of terminal diseases are going to affect communication for many of their patients.
As we all know, however, even if more hospices were prepared to admit people with dementia at the end of their life, there aren’t enough hospice beds to cope with demand. This then only leaves someone’s own home, a care home or a hospital as options. I’m sure that most people would want to be in their own home, but often primary care, out-of-hours care and palliative care services are not able to provide the help and support required. Having a family who can care for you is an advantage, but they will undoubtedly need some help from health and social care professionals within the community, and most experts in palliative care are already overstretched.
Our experience of care homes is that most did not want to take my dad when he was languishing in a hospital bed with extensive needs, so I count our blessings that one home took a very different view. For people who are approaching the end of their life and currently living in a care home, the experience can often be that the home become fearful of providing palliative care, and will therefore call an ambulance to take the person to A&E when severe pneumonia, UTI’s or other grave health problems set in.
In theory, care homes should be well placed to provide end-of-life care in an environment that is far more homely than a hospital. To do this, however, requires liaison with other health professionals (GP’s, specialist palliative care nurses etc), on-going, honest and transparent discussions with families, and agreement from all parties on a way forward. I believe that this is achievable (my dad's end-of-life care being an excellent example), but it would require specific training across the board to empower the professionals charged with providing this care, and much greater understanding and knowledge on the part of families. The Gold Standards Framework is an excellent starting point, but it isn’t mandatory for care providers.
I am certain that most people living with dementia, and their families, would not want to be in a situation where the person with dementia is taking their last breaths on a trolley in a busy A&E department, just because our health and social care services cannot respond to their end -of-life care needs more compassionately and appropriately. Likewise a busy hospital ward, as a result of being an inpatient for far longer than necessary and picking up numerous hospital-acquired infections along the way, is also not a good model of end-of-life care.
I think that the principles behind giving people a dignified death without painful interventions and excessive and aggressive treatments is in essence to be applauded. In the end that is exactly what my dad had and I can say that it was a peaceful and loving end for him. Clearly, however, what has happened with the usage of the LCP has often gone against all of these objectives, largely due to failure of implementation and the utterly inappropriate use of incentives to put people onto it.
Dementia is a progressive and terminal disease, and as such, ensuring people who are living with it can have a good end-of-life when that time comes is vital. As a society we need to start having honest, open discussions about what a good end-of-life really means and how that is achieved. We need to encourage and facilitate more widespread advance care planning, and ensure that health and social care is able to support people to have what they have said they want at the end of their life. For those without advance care planning in place, we need to ensure that their end-of-life care is as individual to them as possible, reflecting everything we know about them and any expressions of wishes.
We need to look at the alternatives to dying in hospital and how we fund those to ensure that no one is left worrying about monetary issues at such a sensitive time. And finally, for people who will inevitably die in hospital, we need to find a successor to the LCP that puts patients and their families at the heart of that end-of-life process to ensure that a good end-of-life is a reality for all. We will have succeeded when taking care of the dying is seen as a privilege for the living.
You can follow me on Twitter: @bethyb1886
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