End of life care
Welcome to NHS Islington’s End of Life Care website.
In Islington there are a variety of health and social care organisations that are working together to provide palliative and end of life care for people affected by advanced or progressive illness which may be incurable. We aim to work together in partnership with you and your family and friends to make sure that your care is the very best it can be.
This website gives you information about all the organisations working across Islington providing palliative and end of life care. By visiting the page headed Palliative and end of life care services you will be able to find out information you need for yourself and for your family so that you can access appropriate support. We want to help you choose the kind of care you and your family need at this time and if you require more advice please do not hesitate to contact us directly by visiting the Contact us page.
What is end of life care?
People approaching the end of their life are a very special group of patients. They can be of any age, from any background, and have one or more of a variety of illnesses. Adults who have an advanced or progressive illness such as
- advanced cancer;
- heart failure;
- chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD];
- stroke;
- multiple sclerosis;
- motor neurone disease;
- Parkinson’s disease;
- Huntington’s chorea;
- any end stage organ failure; or
- dementia
may eventually come to the end of life as a direct result of one or more of these illnesses. If you are affected by a life threatening illness you are entitled to receive the best care towards the end of your life. This approach may enable you to choose to stay at home, enable your family and friends who may be caring for you to be supported right through your illness and into the future when they are bereaved, enable services involved in your care to be highly responsive to your changing needs, and make sure we help you to maintain your dignity at all times.
This is the essence of NHS Islington’s strategy for end of life care, whereby all the palliative care and end of life services are working together committed to getting things right for you and your family and friends.
For more information, you can read NHS Islington’s end of life strategy.
What is palliative care?
Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual.
How can this approach help me?
Palliative care -
- provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms;
- affirms life and regards dying as a normal process;
- intends neither to hasten or postpone death;
- integrates the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care;
- offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death;
- offers a support system to help the family cope during the patients illness and in their own bereavement;
- uses a team approach to address the needs of patients and their families, including bereavement counselling, if indicated;
- will enhance quality of life, and may also positively influence the course of illness;
- is applicable early in the course of illness, in conjunction with other therapies that are intended to prolong life, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy, and includes those investigations needed to better understand and manage distressing clinical complications.
Source: World Health Organisation (WHO) 2002
