Standards for dying in acute hospitals drawn up

DYING PATIENTS should be informed about futile treatment which would cause them unnecessary pain in their final days, it has been suggested.

The draft quality standards for end of life in hospitals, drawn up by the Irish Hospice Foundation, addresses the issues relating to death in acute hospitals.

About 40 per cent of the 30,000 Irish people who die each year do so in acute hospitals.

The standards focus on patients and their families in particular. Among the issues it addresses are how to communicate with dying people with a view to respecting their wishes.

Staff should be thought how to help families who have just been bereaved particularly when it is children that have died.

In that case, it should include allowing parents to take a photograph of their child, a lock of hair or a foot or hand print, the draft guidelines suggest.

The standards address the treatment of dying people in acute hospitals.

It is part of the hospice friendly hospitals (HFH) programme which is currently operating in over 40 acute and community hospital principles.

The standards were developed in partnership with a range of organisations including a number of the hospitals in Dublin including the Mater hospital and Our Ladys Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin.

The consultation process on the latest standards will end on Friday, 31st July and the final standards are due to be published in September 2009.

The standards set out what a person at end of life and his/her family can reasonably expect from hospitals in terms of service provision, support and quality care.

They also outline how training and supports for hospital staff should be delivered in order to enhance end-of-life care for dying patients.

Helen Donovan, Standards Development Co-ordinator of the HFH Programme, said: “End-of-life care is often not seen as a core activity of hospitals despite the fact that most people die there.

End-of-life care is normally not included in service plans or adequately reflected in hospital cultures, systems and structures.

“While there are many instances where people receive high quality end-of-life care in our hospitals, the challenge is to ensure that every patient can die in comfort and dignity in our hospitals.”