Hospice Care Week: An interview with Georgina Parker, Lead Consultant

This week (6-12 October) is Hospice Care Week, a time to shine a spotlight on the work of hospices across the UK. Because hospice care may be more than you think.

On the Inpatient Unit, in the community, and in people's homes across Maidstone and surrounding areas, we look after people who need palliative and end of life care day in, day out. Our teams work tirelessly to make sure that those people are comfortable and can live well in the time they have left.

Each year our community services team help thousands of people at the end of their lives live well in your community- letting many people be where they want to be, in the place they love most: their own home.

Dr Georgina Parker is the hospice's Lead Consultant.

"It's my job to support hospice patients who are living at home or elsewhere in the community."

"If a patient has complex symptoms or complicated medical regiemes are needed, that's when my colleagues in the Hospice Community Team will ask me to get involved.

"In urgent situations, I can prescribe medication myself, whilst keeping the patient's GP up to speed. I can also arrange for investigations such as a CT scan or a blood test at the hospital. I'm lucky to have established relationships with local GPs and consultants in the hospital, so I can email them directly and get a speedy response.

"One gentleman I visited at his home was completely dependent on a ventilator. He couldn't breathe at all without it, but it was incredibly uncomfortable and he couldn't move or eat or talk properly. He wanted to stop the ventilation but was afraid of dying a painful and distressing death. He had a wonderful team of District Nurses who looked after him, but they were also concerned about the consequences for him without the ventilator.

"I reassured the gentleman and the District Nurses that medication could enable him to die naturally and peacefully. He decided that was what he wanted and so spent the last few hours of his life without a ventilator- comfortable and with dignity in his own familiar surroundings.

"Afterwards, we did a debrief education session with the District Nurses and the Home Treatment Team. So, when another patient wanted to come off his ventilator, they felt empowered to facilitate it themselves."

Dr George tell us more about the hospice's role in training and education

"I have set up a community of practice where GP representatives from the surgeries in our catchment area, meet regularly to discuss a topic related to palliative care. The GPs and their patients benefit from this knowledge sharing, but it also makes it easier for us to contact each other if we need to.

"We always have one or two trainee doctors working with us on the Inpatient Unit. They come for three months as part of their two-year foundation training. They do six placements before they can be fully registered, and the hospice is one of the options.

"It's great to be able to influence doctors at that very early stage in their career. It means that whatever they choose to specialise in, they've learnt something about looking after people who are approaching the end of their lives. Perhaps more importantly, they've learnt to recognise when someone is dying and that it may be time to talk to that person about their wishes."