END OF LIFE CARE AWARD
Hospice Foundation sponsors new NHI Award
T
he NHI Care Awards 2015 will see the introduction of a new award category: the Excellence in End of Life Care in Nursing Homes award. The Irish Hospice Foundation are proud to be sponsoring this new award, which is open to all NHI registered nursing homes. The award is being established to celebrate innovative practices in end-of-life care that are happening in Irish nursing homes. Excellent end-of-life care is person centred, flexible and is built around the needs of the individual, with the resident always at the heart of every decision. It is a holistic approach to care that responds to the person’s physical, social, spiritual and psychological strengths and needs, and also considers the needs of the person’s family and friends. Each year in Ireland, approximately 7,500 people die in nursing home settings and every staff member plays a crucial role in ensuring that every resident receives compassionate end-of-life care and their family get the support they need. Nursing homes are sensitively developing quality initiatives that support the resident, their family and friends and staff to ensure that compassion and dignity is a constant for all at the endof-life and in bereavement. One such initiative is the “Journey of Change” Programme that is available via the
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Irish Hospice Foundation. This initiative enables nursing homes to engage in quality improvement at three different levels to support them to provide the best care possible to residents at the end of their lives. We know that this area of work requires kind and considered leadership so that the quality initiatives introduced have the required and lasting impact on culture of end of life care provided in the nursing home. NHI and the Irish Hospice Foundation want to acknowledge and recognise the innovation that is happening. Candidates for this new award should be selected on the basis that they have achieved significant success in introducing quality improvements in end-of-life care. The innovation should demonstrate the positive difference this improvement has made to the resident, their friends and family and staff. Further details in respect of the award category will be provided to NHI Members when the application/nomination process for NHI Care Awards 2015 opens. The NHI Care Awards 2015 will take place Thursday 12th November at the Double Tree Hilton Hotel, Ballsbridge, Dublin.