More end of life care for people in Surrey
Press release published
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Marie Curie Cancer Care will be working alongside Surrey Community Health and Central Surrey Health to double the amount of end of life care the charity provides to people in their own homes across Surrey. The project, which will launch in October and run until the end of June 2012, builds upon a successful pilot already being delivered by Surrey Community Health. The next stage of the pilot, which is jointly funded by Marie Curie Cancer Care and NHS Surrey, will continue to integrate with community nursing services and work closely with hospices across the county, to support local people of any diagnosis in the last weeks of life. The county wide 24/7 nursing service will be delivered by Marie Curie Cancer Care, Surrey Community Health and Central Surrey Health. The project will increase nursing care for people at home during the day and night, allowing more people to die in their place of choice. The pilot will enable Marie Curie Nurses to provide care to an additional 99 patients in their own homes pro-rata. This is on top of the 136 patients that currently receive Marie Curie Nursing care at night. Judith Heavens, Area Manager for the Marie Curie Nursing Service, said: "Marie Curie Cancer Care is already running a nursing service in Surrey but this pilot will help us double the amount of care we currently provide to patients across Surrey, irrespective of diagnosis. This will mean greater access to end of life care for patients and their families and an increase in the number of patients dying in their place of choice with the right care." Alison Edgington, Chief Executive of Surrey Community Health, said: "I am delighted that Marie Curie has come on board with this project which has been really successful for the past year. We want Surrey patients to have access to the very best care right up to the end of their life and this pilot is doing just that." To access a Marie Curie Nurse, speak to your GP or district nurse. For more information, please visit the Marie Curie website. |
Contact information
Marie Curie press office
- 0844 893 2101
- media@mariecurie.org.uk
Hannah Russell, Surrey Community Health
Head of Communications
- 01932 722 952
- 07780 956 770
- Hannah.Russell@surreypct.nhs.uk
Vikki Challen, Central Surrey Health
Communications Manager
- 020 8394 3843
- 020 8394 3846
- vikki.challen@centralsurreyhealth.nhs.uk
Updated
Notes to editor
Marie Curie Cancer Care is one of the UK’s largest charities. Employing more than 2,700 nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals, it provided care to more than 31,000 terminally ill patients in the community and in its nine hospices last year and is the largest provider of hospice beds outside the NHS.
Funding
Around 70 per cent of the charity’s income comes from the generous support of thousands of individuals, membership organisations and businesses, with the balance of our funds coming from the NHS.
Marie Curie Nurses
The charity is best known for its network of Marie Curie Nurses working in the community to provide end of life care, totally free for patients in their own homes.
Research
The charity provides core funding for two centres for palliative care research:
- Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Unit at University College London
- Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute Liverpool.
It also supports palliative and end-of-life care research through its project grant funding streams, the Marie Curie Cancer Care Research Programme (administered by Cancer Research UK) and the Dimbleby Marie Curie Cancer Care Research Fund.
Marie Curie Cancer Care funds seven fundamental scientific research groups which investigate the causes and treatments of cancer.
This research was previously carried out at the Marie Curie Research Institute in Oxted, Surrey. The programmes are now located in universities around the country, and will receive funding from the charity until 2012.
Supporting the choice to die at home
Research shows around 65 per cent of people would like to die at home if they had a terminal illness, with a sizeable minority opting for hospice care.
However, more than 50 per cent of cancer deaths still occur in hospital, the place people say they would least like to be.
Since 2004 Marie Curie Cancer Care has been campaigning for more patients to be able to make the choice to be cared for and die at home.
About Surrey Community Health
Surrey Community Health is the "provider arm" of NHS Surrey.
It delivers frontline healthcare in eight Surrey community hospitals, community nursing, community dentistry, children’s services, health visiting, and specialist services such as physiotherapy, diabetes treatment, and renal care.
Surrey Community Health is also commissioned to provide healthcare within Surrey’s prisons.
Everybody uses community services at some point in their life – services range from health visiting at birth all the way through to palliative care at the end of life.
Surrey Community Health is one of the largest community service providers in England.
About Central Surrey Health
Central Surrey Health is a ground breaking employee owned, not for profit social enterprise providing therapy and community nursing services to the population of central Surrey.
Its ethos is to combine the values and principles of the NHS with the 'can do' culture of a successfully run business.
Because it's employee-owned, each one of the 700+ co-owners is directly involved in running the business, which means those people who are most in touch with patients' needs are given the power and the motivation to develop our services.
Being a not for profit social enterprise means any surplus is ploughed straight back into the business, benefitting patients and customers.