Night, weekend and bank holiday Specialist Palliative Care Services
This guidance document produced by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and the Association of Palliative Medicine (APM) recommends levels of Specialist Palliative Care (SPC) medical and nursing staffing for hospital, community and hospice settings at night, at weekends and on bank holidays. The guidance is a response to a growing understanding, within all parts of health and social care, that it is not enough to provide our services in business hours.Click here – Specialist Palliative Care night weekend and bank holiday working
What is Palliative Medicine?
Palliative medicine provides clinical leadership, care and support to prevent and relieve suffering for people with life-limiting and life-threatening illness.
• Its diagnostic and therapeutic priorities focus on meeting every individual patient’s goals through shared decision-making with them and those important to them
• It is practiced both as part of multidisciplinary palliative care teams and in partnership with other relevant specialties to deliver individualised, holistic care
• It is a medical specialty recognised by the respective nations’ Royal Colleges of Physicians
Palliative Medicine’s specific expertise is in:
• Assessing and managing physical, psychological and spiritual symptoms and in mitigating distress
• Clinical analysis of and decision-making in complex scenarios, such as when a patient’s clinical needs, preferences and interests are finely balanced and may require skilled application of relevant ethical and legal guidance
• Skilled communication about and co-ordination of care, especially at disease transitions and boundaries between care settings
• Working with partners, colleagues and organisations across multiple sectors to provide excellent multidisciplinary care for patients and those important to them
• Care and support to those important to the patient, including facilitating their bereavement care
The Association
The Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland (APM) is the world’s largest representative body for doctors practicing or interested in Palliative Medicine, with a growing membership of over 1,000. We welcome international members.
• Full and Associate membership is open to doctors practicing or interested in palliative medicine
• Student membership is open to undergraduate medical students
• Affiliate membership is being developed for other clinicians with an interest in palliative medicine
We work in strategic alliance with those who can contribute to achieving our vision, supporting our values and delivering our aims.
Recent News and Posts from APM
Email Address Reminder
It has come to our attention that there may be a problem with sending our communications to the APM membership via Dotmailer, i.e. e-Bulletin. We have learned over the past month that some APM members are not aware of these communications.
Having looked into the situation, it does appear that some IT Departments are blocking these emails as the email address has not been “White Listed” with them, which in turn results in the email being blocked.
Could you please ensure that you inform your IT Department to “White List” the following email address:
Association for Palliative Medicine communications@apmonline.org.uk
Click here for “How to Whitelist Emails”
Could you please also ensure that you inform the APM if your email address changes.
