End of Life Resources boxes making a real difference on Ward 7
Colleagues on Ward 7 at Queen’s Hospital Burton have created end of life resource boxes to help to give palliative care patients and their families the support and care that they need.
The box consists of a wide range of materials and initiatives from across the Trust, as well as new ideas from the team on the ward, which have been gathered into easy to use and find resource boxes, allowing staff to utilise them more efficiently during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Sharon Hill, Senior Sister on Ward 7, said that the idea has really helped workers on the ward:
“Before the COVID outbreak, we were a Gastroenterology and Haematology ward, so we would, for example, have been looking after patients with end stage liver disease and other end of life patients.
“We were then converted into a cohort ward, but our end of life resources were scattered all over the ward, so we thought it’d be a good idea to have everything that not only patients and their families may need, but resources to help staff too, in one place.” 
The boxes contain guides for colleagues who need to have difficult conversations with patients and relatives, bereavement cards and kits, moulds to make handprints of patients, wooden hearts that are given to families and much more.
Sister Hill added: “The team has been finding the boxes really useful, particularly the prompt card for making difficult phone calls or conversations. We’ve been finding that staff are also sending out more of the wooden and knitted hearts and bereavement cards as staff are more aware of them, so that’s really good to see.”
As well as all of the materials currently available, the team are now looking to add to the boxes with their own ideas.
Sister Hill said: “These materials have really come to the forefront as families can’t be with the relatives on the ward, so we almost become their family while they’re with us.
“The staff have come up with some really good ideas and these boxes will certainly become part and parcel on the ward.”
Dawn Hard, End of Life Care Facilitator at Queen’s Hospital Burton, said: “It’s great to see that ward staff are developing their own end of life resources, especially at these time of uncertainty. These boxes are fantastic idea to support what is important to patients and their family, especially the provision of keepsakes and cards.
“I am pleased that the boxes are encouraging input from staff and allowing them the autonomy to develop end of life care/resources for patients and their family on their ward.”