End of life care

Care at home

You may not need to move away from home to receive care, as hospice care can be provided at home. Sometimes this is available as a 24-hour service. To find out check with your GP or community palliative care nurse.

Your GP can arrange for community palliative care nurses, such as Macmillan nurses, to come to your home and care for you there. Community palliative care nurses offer specialist care including hands-on nursing, advice on pain and symptom control, and practical and emotional support.

Your local authority’s social services department may provide a range of services and equipment to help you remain at home as you approach the end of life. This could include home adaptations such as hand rails.

Hospices and palliative care services can also provide support for your partner, relatives or anyone else who is helping to care for you at home. This support could be through community support groups or one-to-one advice. You or your carers can find out more about support available for carers in Carers Direct. 

You may want to carry on living at home but visit a hospice during the day for the care and support you need. Going into a hospice for the day means you will be able to access more services than you could if you received care at home. This may include creative and complementary therapies and rehabilitation, for example exercise programmes. You will also be able to meet other people who are receiving hospice care.

Check with your local hospice whether they provide transport to and from your home. Hospice spaces are limited, but you can talk to your local hospice to see what is available. Find hospice services near you.

To read articles and watch videos of people talking about their own experiences of care at home, see healthtalkonline's care at home and nursing.

Last reviewed: 31/10/2010

Next review due: 31/10/2012

Comments

2 Comments

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Comments are personal views. Any information they give has not been checked and may not be accurate.

caring daughter said on 15 May 2012

My father is 94 yrs old with 3 life ending conditions. He is now bedridden. We have struggled to get anything like the care described on this website. A registrar from the GP calls once a week- his doctor of 32 years doesn't seem to want to visit. What has happened to doctors? I have had to track down every NHS community service to help my father in last 18 months - the GPs either don't know or don't care.
Such end of life care is referred to as "Gold Standard Framework" I can tell you there is nothing "Gold Standard" about it!
The District Nurses do come twice a day and then if called again so they have been good. However they expect us to administer all medication except injections.To get anything else requires me bursting into tears and saying i can't cope. The Macmillan Nurse calls once a week only - for 20 minutes. In order to get any other care which does not involve members of the family staying 24/7 or charity we have had to pay. It seems everyone thinks that as family live within half an hour then we can provide the kind of care he needs. We also need psychological/spiritual support(as suggested on this page) to care for him dying. "cradle to grave" - forget it! I just wonder if end of life care is only for those dying"before their time"? But dying is dying whether one is 55 or 95.

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Gadly said on 31 December 2010

My mother, aged 103, was denied end of life care by her GP. He said she could go on for quite a while. It was plain to her four sons and daughters that she could not and she died four days later in a lot of misery and discomfort. How about that for end of life care? Politicians can't do it, it takes decent caring doctors who can be bothered to to work at Christmas time. N.B. We did not ask for this care in the holiday period, but before it.
Ruth Blaug

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