PRESS RELEASE
14th September 2012.
Immediate release.
DOCTORS MUST TREAT THE WHOLE PERSON AND NOT
FOCUS ON THE PATIENT’S DISEASE
Hospital doctors and general practitioners must stop treating the disease and start caring holistically
for the patient with a life limiting condition, a palliative care expert stated today (Sept 14th) at the
conference Palliative Care for All. Bridging the Gap which was organised by the Irish Hospice
Foundation (IHF).
Delivering the keynote address at the one-day conference, Professor Scott Murray from Edinburgh
University stated that when asked, most doctors and nurses worldwide said they wanted to die of
cancer because the services and supports were in place to treat the dying cancer patient. But quality
end-of-life care needed to be developed for all people, not just those dying from cancer.
Prof Murray is a practising general practitioner who leads the first Primary Palliative Care Research
Group based in Family Medicine in Europe. The group is based in the Centre for Population Health
Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.
Prof Murray said there were four dimensions to caring for the person with a life-limiting condition:
physical, psychological, social and spiritual. Palliative care for all was not about specialist palliative
care for all but involved delivering personalised care which met the four dimensions of care,
thinking ahead to prevent unnecessary distress and to anticipate care needs and supporting
communities and families by valuing carers.
He went on: “The perception about palliative care is that it is all about cancer and hospices. This
needs to be challenged. Some progress has been made internationally in opening people’s minds
to the fact that most people who need palliative care do not have cancer. But it needs to be
highlighted more in the medical community. Palliative care should be for all illnesses. We also
need to start our care for the patient earlier and not just at the terminal stage of the disease.
Palliative care should be for all diseases, at all times, all dimensions, all setting and in all countries.
People need to die as well as possible.”
Participants at the conference learned about the three action research projects which were funded
by the IHF’s Palliative Care for All programme from 2009 to 2012. The aim was to develop methods
to identify and respond to the palliative care needs of people with three diseases: advanced heart
failure, dementia and respiratory disease.
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Some outcomes of the projects included:
 More collaboration on symptom management
 Better communications with joint reviews of patients, multidisciplinary team meetings and
staff debriefing following the death of a patient
 Developed tools such as prompts to refer patients to palliative care
 Increased access to specialist palliative care services for patients
 Initiated a range of education sessions including elearning for staff
 Developed guidance documents to assist staff in person centred advance care planning
The IHF’s Programme Development Manager, Marie Lynch, commented: “We’ve seen increased
collaboration, more reflective practice, a change in practice and new protocols in the effort to
extend palliative care to people with life limiting conditions other than cancer. The people to
benefit from these changes will be the patients who will see their palliative care needs being
anticipated and increased access to services that will improve their quality of life. We believe the
action research projects will be sustainable and can be replicated in the care pathways offered to
patients with other life-limiting conditions. We are now consulting with other disease areas and
healthcare NGOs including renal services and neurological conditions about future research
projects.”
The Palliative Care for All programme was set up to develop the palliative care skills of staff caring
for people with chronic life-limiting diseases in all care settings – nursing homes, hospitals and the
community. The aim was to ensure that all patients living with life-limiting conditions could access
the appropriate care they needed to live a quality life. The reports of the three actions research
projects will be published next month (October).
The advanced respiratory disease project was based at St. James's Hospital, Dublin and involved
Our Lady’s Hospice and the Liberties Primary Care Team. The heart failure project was
implemented in the Mater and Connolly Hospitals and was supported by St Francis hospice and
Northdoc Primary Care Network. The dementia project was based at St Joseph’s hospital, Clare
Mental Health Services for Older People with links to Milford Hospice.
The conference was funded by the Irish Hospice Foundation.
- ends For more information, please contact:
Caroline Lynch,
Head of Communications and Advocacy,
The Irish Hospice Foundation
Tel: 087-123 75 86 or caroline.lynch@hospice-foundation.ie
NOTE TO EDITOR
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Copies of the presentations from the conference are available on request from Caroline
Lynch on 087 123 75 86.
Audio tapes featuring short interviews with some speakers from the conference will be
posted on www.hospice-foundation.ie during the day.