Medical Matters: The truth about palliative medicine

Ensuring that a loved one is comfortable when they reach the last days of their life is incredibly important, and the palliative medicine team here at Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust dedicate their time to doing all they can to make their patients comfortable.

But it’s not just end of life care that the team focus on; did you know that the team treat many who will go on to beat cancer and lead long and full lives, as well helping people to live comfortably and longer despite having a life-limiting condition?

Our specialist palliative care team provides care in the acute hospital setting plus they offer weekly outpatient clinics. Specialist palliative care is also provided in the community by the Rowcroft Hospice nursing and medical team.

It’s a common misconception that palliative medicine only helps those with weeks to live, when the reality is the team help many with months and years to live and even those with a positive prognosis. We work much earlier with people who are living with cancer and focus on the burden of symptoms they are experiencing to help at a far earlier stage.

We also look after non-malignant patients and have patients who we could be supporting for years, when previously there was a far shorter period of time to find treatments to help. There are many people who hear that an appointment has been arranged with palliative care and fear the worst, and that shouldn’t be the case.

Part of my role is to help support those with little time left, but I also work with people who have months and years, to help manage symptoms, and optimise their quality of life. I see people with life-limiting conditions and whilst for some prognosis can be short, I also help people who can still have years to look forward to.

Patients can worry when they are informed that palliative care will be visiting them at the bedside and wonder why we are there. Our role involves helping to manage multiple complex symptoms and doing all we can to help improve quality of life.

We also occasionally work with patients who are likely to be cured. For example, I have recently worked closely with a patient who had neck cancer but it was caught early enough to be cured.

However, due to the intensive treatment exacerbating symptoms and causing side effects, he was supported by palliative medicine whilst undergoing treatment.

He has since had the ‘all clear’ and is now an outpatient who will visit a couple times of year to make sure all is OK.

The team offers support to both patients and their families to address any social, spiritual or psychological needs they may have, and to help ensure patients are fully informed.

We liaise with community teams, for example your GP, district nurse or hospice nurse as appropriate, and when you are discharged from hospital. Further information on our specialist palliative care team, and the full range of support they offer can be found online on our website.

www.torbayandsouthdevon.nhs.uk/services/palliative-and-end-of-life- care