Crosscare Mandatory Training for Clinical Staff at The Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice.
The Art Team were asked to contribute a session on autonomy as part of a training session for clinical staff on the hospice’s new holistic assessment tools. These new tools support the hospice in developing its services with young adults.
The Hospice's new assessment tools includes GIRFEC / SHANARRI indicators and a new sensory communication tool, which have been incorporated into Crosscare, the digital clinical records recording system used by the hospice.
GIRFEC (Getting it Right for Every Child) and SHANARRI (Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible and Included) indicators are normally applied in relation to children and young people until the age of 18 years old. The hospice has decided to apply these indicators to all adults and young people accessing hospice services.
In parallel to the hospice’s work developing new services for young adults, Jeni and Kirsty were developing their ideas around autonomy, creativity and end of life. They were using the holistic assessment as a framework for considering whether a person’s autonomy was undermined or supported in relation to their physical, psychological, social or spiritual needs while in the art room.
Through their experience of supporting people to engage in an arts practice while patients at the hospice, Jeni and Kirsty expanded this holistic terrain to include environment, dialogue and sensory experience. They identified these key areas as either supporting or undermining a person’s autonomy while in the art room.
As the art team began to share their work with clinical staff at the hospice they found that environment, dialogue and sensory experience were also areas that clinical staff were thinking about as having the potential to either support or undermine a patient.
Liz Smith, Practice Development Facilitator and Gillian Sherwood, Director Clinical Services at The Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice suggested a discussion about autonomy would support reflective practice for clinical staff in relation these new areas of Crosscare.
Jeni and Kirsty delivered seven sessions attended by 60% of clinical staff. The sessions evaluated well, with the majority of participants saying it was useful for reflecting on their practice.
