At The Myton Hospices we are passionate about providing learning and development opportunities to all organisations that provide palliative and end of life care in the wider Coventry and Warwickshire community.
Our Clinical Education Team offer professional development, evidence-based education and training in palliative and end of life care. QELCA® is an innovative learning programme originally created, developed and endorsed by St Christopher’s Hospice, UK. The QELCA® programme was designed to enable and empower teams of health and social care practitioners to lead on the delivery of high-quality care to patients and families at the end of life.
Myton Hospice is a QELCA® satellite and has been delivering QELCA® training programmes since 2018. Our cohorts of participants have included NHS ward nurses from acute hospital trusts, residential and nursing home staff and paramedics from West Midlands Ambulance Service. QELCA® integrates a work-based action learning experience with clinical colleagues who work together in the same teams or clinical setting. Classroom reflection in a group of peers supports the learning, facilitated by specialist palliative care clinicians who have undertaken the ‘Train the Trainers’ programme.
During each QELCA® programme participants have the opportunity to work alongside senior doctors and nurses within our Inpatient Units and Myton at Home service. These experiences are designed to deepen their understanding of palliative and end of life care across different settings, while working clinically alongside professionals who are skilled and experienced in providing palliative and end of life care.
Over the subsequent six months, the Myton QELCA® Facilitators continue to support QELCA® participants as they develop and implement quality improvement projects in palliative and end of life care within their own clinical areas.
Some of the topics in the QELCA® training programmes have included:
- Advanced communication skills, focusing on undertaking sensitive conversations around prognosis, future treatment and care plans
- Advance care planning with patients, their family and carers, identifying what matters most to our patients with palliative care needs
- Enhancing symptom management for holistic, palliative and end of life care, incorporating pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions
- Supporting staff to prioritise person-centred goals towards the end of life
- Advocating for vulnerable patients and supporting their families
- Improving knowledge and practical aspects of mouth care, skin and wound care from a palliative perspective
- Palliative care emergencies
- Practical management of breathlessness
- Empathy, compassion and resilience for self, team and organisation
Followed by one morning per month for 6 months of facilitated action learning enabling the whole group to support each other as they reflect on their own actions and progress with improvements in palliative and end of life care in their own clinical areas in the hospital.
The Myton Hospices QELCA® Training Team
Feedback from our previous participants:
"The best course I have been on in my entire career"
"I found the course content very pertinent and highlights the importance of the individual, patient, and clinician. The format of how it was structured was excellent"
"This course has given me an overwhelming thirst to make as many clinicians as possible aware of best practice I have seen, in palliative and end of life care"
"I thoroughly enjoyed all the study sessions and believe they will be beneficial to my department and practice in the future"
