End of Life and Palliative Care Team shortlisted for national award

A large group of women

The End of Life and Palliative Care Team at Blackpool Victoria Hospital

The Palliative and End of Life Care Team at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been shortlisted for a national palliative care award.

Dr Andrea Whitfield, Associate Medical Director and Head of Department for Palliative Medicine for the Trust, said her team was the only finalist from the North West to be shortlisted in the Palliative Care Team of the Year category in the annual British Medical Journal (BMJ) Awards.

Work done through the team’s ‘Transform’ project to improve end of life care was a major part of the award submission. The team will now give a presentation to the judging panel on March 15 and the awards ceremony will take place in London on May 5.

Dr Whitfield said: “We are very excited that our team has been shortlisted.

“It’s a prestigious award and it recognises the work of all our colleagues in the hospital. It follows on from our success at the Patient Safety Awards in 2015.

“Our awards entry is all about transforming end of life care. As part of the sustainability of the Transform Project we have worked with Trinity Hospice to recruit three new nurses to the hospital palliative care team. The team will continue to support training of staff on the key enablers of transforming end of life care.”

Dr Harriet Preston, Consultant in Palliative Medicine and the Trust’s new Lead for End of Life Care, added: “Being shortlisted for the award is a reflection of what the team has achieved and of the importance of the Transform project.

“We are now in a new phase and we are supporting wards to implement the key enablers.”

Only three other teams from across the UK have been shortlisted for the Palliative Care Team of the Year Award including Harrow Clinical Commissioning Group with St Luke’s Hospice in Greater London, the Cynthia Spencer Hospice in Northampton and Kings College Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in London.

The team won the award for excellence in End of Life Care at the national Patient Safety Awards in 2015 and also won an award from the Carers’ Trust, Blackpool.

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