Daventry hospital first in UK to get care award
DANETRE Hospital in Daventry is celebrating after being the first in the country to achieve a gold standards framework (GSF) award for its end of life care.
Cawthorne ward sister Patsy Hatfield and staff nurse Tracy Devenney compiled a portfolio showing how the hospital met 20 different standards to get the award.
Tracy said: “Taking part in GSF has shown that we are doing everything we should be doing, but we can now provide the evidence.
“It sets a standard to keep to, and ensures that other staff and students know what we do and understand why we do it.
“Providing a framework for assessing care for people in the last years of life means that staff feel better equipped to deal with the challenging task of looking after patients until they die.
“The framework has given us some ideas for enhancing the care we give. For instance we now focus more on advance care planning, which means that we are proactive in encouraging people to ‘think ahead’ and clarify their needs and options. We’ve even had people get married here as a result.”
The unit is mainly nurse-led, but is supported by palliative consultants, GPs and Macmillan nurses. Having achieved the award, it will now be subject to an annual accreditation, and a full re-assessment every three years.
For more on this including comments from someone who has seen the care given on the ward, see the Daventry Express on Thursday.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Daventry
Sunday 19 May 2013
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 11 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: North
