Spiritual Care Conference/Review

Report/Review of Spiritual Care Conference on 25 -10 - 2018

1 | P a g e

Author: George Beuken

Chief Executive Bruce High

Deputy Chief Executive: Quality and Governance

Joy Farquharson

Responsible Committee: Education Committee

Background

St Andrew’s Hospice hosted a conference on 25/10/2018 at the Tudor Hotel Airdrie entitled:

Can Spiritual Care Support Realistic Medicine in Practice?

(Often a patient’s distress is created by the situation they may find themselves in, rather than by the symptoms of the illness)

Support in times of crisis – People from every belief and faith community or life stance need support systems, especially in times of crisis. They face ultimate questions about life and death. They search for meaning in the experience of illness. They look for help to cope with their illness and with suffering, loss, loneliness, anxiety, uncertainty, impairment, despair, anger and guilt. They consider ethical dilemmas which advancing technology and heightened expectations generate at the beginning and end of life. They address in depth, perhaps for the first time, the meaning of life.

Listening – By listening to an often silent cry for help, those providing spiritual care for patients, carers and staff allow people to explore their innermost feelings and ask the most difficult questions about suffering, illness and death. By listening to their doubts, anxieties and fears those in need may be helped to find peace of mind.

The conference programme was as follows:

09.30 – 10.00 Registration & Refreshments

10.00 – 10.05 Chair person - AM Welcome

Dr Catriona RossPalliative Medicine Consultant NHSL

10.05 – 10.35 Why is Communication a Barrier to Realistic Medicine?

George Beuken,Head of Pastoral Care & Education, SAH

10.35 – 11.05 Realistic Medicine in Practice – Palliative Care at the Front Door

Dr Karen HarviePalliative Medicine Consultant, NHSL

11.05 – 11.30 Refreshments/ Graffiti Board All

11.30 – 12.00 The Role of Spiritual Care in Hospital Anticipatory Care Planning

Prof. Robin Taylor, Consultant in Respiratory Medicine, NHSL

12.00 – 12.30 Spiritual Care and ‘What matters to you’ – two sides of the same person-centred coin?

Dr Juliet Spiller,Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Marie Curie Hospice, Edinburgh

12.30 – 13.15 Lunch/ Graffiti Board All

2 | P a g e

Chair Person - PM Joy Farquharson,Deputy C.E.O. SAH

13.30 – 14.30 #Hello, my name is... (stage play) Pluto Productions

14.30 – 15.00 The legacy of Dr Kate Granger Chris Pointon

15.00 – 15.10 Comfort Break

15.10 – 15.30 Transition Loss; the experience of the terminally ill patient

George BeukenHead of Pastoral Care & Education, SAH

15.30 – 16.00 Brief Engagement and Acceptance Coaching in Community and Hospice Settings: applying Acceptance & Commitment Therapy in Transition to Palliative Care

David GillandersAcademic Director,Doctoral Programme in Clinical Psychology,University of Edinburgh

16.00 – 16.30 Plenary Prof. Craig White, Divisional Clinical Lead,Healthcare Quality and Improvement Directorate, Planning & Quality Division,| DG Health and Social Care, Scottish Government

Methodology

This report will present qualitative feedback from the delegate evaluation forms that were completed at the conference. The delegate evaluation forms contained multiple choice answers to five questions. (See appendix)

A total of 148 delegates registered for the event; 131 delegates attended, 17 delegates failed to attend and 105 delegates completed the delegate evaluation form.

3 | P a g e

Results

4 | P a g e

Q4 what was the best aspect of this event?

Answered: 93 Skipped: 12

A sample of the feedback

This has been one of the best events I’ve been to for a long time. Clear 'real world' truth and most importantly the person being in the centre of everything.

Unlike many events, today’s speakers level of communicating their message, language used, audience engagement was very much appreciated. No jargon!

Realisation that a patient’s journey begins at diagnosis and that they have had a long journey suffering so many losses along the way, and also the impact it has on family. Excellent course particularly enjoyed Prof Taylor’s talk, Chris Pointon’s emotional story and both George Beuken’s talks.

By far Chris Pointon’s talk was the highlight of the day. Worth attending for that alone. Length of sessions good about 30mins rather than longer. Video clips in afternoon session good, morning clip less good - quite stark. Good session re MS patient - looking at loss out with 'dying' and found loss of relationship very sad/powerful.

The personal account from Chris Pointon was second to none. Great to hear from a personal experience. A well organised conference with a good variety of speakers.

I enjoyed all topics covered. I particularly enjoyed the personal account of Chris Pointon. I like how compassionate and spiritual care is increasingly recognised as the remit of healthcare professionals and not just those within a designated chaplaincy role.

Sharing of experiences, knowledge and networking. The growing awareness of how necessary it is to share your wishes and have conversations with loved ones before it's too late. A lot of good speakers on very difficult topics.

Very comprehensive exploration of the topic. Great to hear all the local work that has been completed and keen to be able to take this back to my workplace (NHS) and share with the teams I work within. Great to network with others. I have a keen interest in palliative care and this has spurred me on to take this learning further. Great to talk/share frankly about spiritual care.

All was fabulous and thought provoking. Particularly transition, loss. The experience of the terminally ill. The power of reflection.

Variety of speakers and delivery styles/media used. Helpful conversation of spiritual care and realistic medicine.

The highlight of this event for me was "Hello my name is" and finding out the background to this campaign. From this event I will take away the need to have DNACPR/HACP conversations with people before they reach a crisis point as people's feelings are different in crisis.

Difficult to single out one particular aspect. Varied knowledge of speakers that together fulfilled my expectations of the day and increased my knowledge and provided much thought provoking reflection.

Very good interesting speakers. I thought the stage play was very powerful as was the video story of the patient and family living with MS and the impact on them both and family. The day encouraged a lot of reflections and relative sheets useful to capture this.

Small things are the most important. Good communication and involving patients in shared decision making. Supporting patients to reflect on their own core values and to talk about what matters to them.

The 'My name is!' was such an incredible insight into the simplest things and how it has positively impacted communication and compassion in health care and wider. All the topics were extremely interesting and relevant. Please do this again.

5 | P a g e

Q5 Which aspect(s) of this event could be improved?

Answered: 58 Skipped: 47

A sample of the feedback

Somewhere with more car parking. Drinks at lunch time, had to buy our own soft drinks. Air conditioning mid part of the afternoon, too cold.

None it was wonderful and life enhancing and will allow me to reflect on patient care. The power of connecting to colleagues for palliative care.

The layout of the room was challenging as often either had my back to speaker or had to keep turning between screens and speakers. Had a sore neck by end of day!

Catering seemed disorganised. Would have been nice to have cakes/biscuits with each coffee break and water on tables replenished. Soft drink options with lunch and perhaps fruit in addition to savoury lunch.

Minor point, difficulty of looking at speaker and screens simultaneously because of seating arrangement. Whether it could be rearranged differently so audience can see both simultaneously would be very helpful. Thank you very much.

Spread event over two days. Excellent day. Really enjoyed - no improvement necessary. Maybe seating and setting of stage uncomfortable to listen to talkers. Otherwise great day and

good variety of speakers. Congratulations! it would be useful in the future in the spirit of person centred and family care to go one step further

to stop clinical addiction and stop calling people patients as being a patient is a label, Latin for "one that suffers" call people by their names not their role.

Air conditioning too cold - very uncomfortable when on - no staff visible to request it to be turned off.

Nothing, all good. One of the best conferences I have been at for some time. Very emotional and learned lots. Thank you.

Very health LED. Perhaps more consideration for social care/work - only 2 social workers and event health abbreviations and jargon at times.

I feel this was a very positive and informative event and therefore feel there is nothing that could be improved.

Venue - the room was very cold after lunch. Catering not organised well - long queues and not enough to drink. Depending on where you sat - you could get a sore neck from trying to see the screen or the speakers.

Room setup was awkward with screens at either end or speaker in the middle - hard to know where to look. Food available was nice but some salad/fruit options would have been good. A community perspective would have been valuable.

Political perspective in plenary seemed dry compared to the rest of the content, not really a "plenary" session reflecting on the day.

Programme was really full and we didn't get a lot of time to discuss, reflect on input. Do not feel that the content always reflected the title. Some presentations font size too small. Would have

liked copies of presentations. I feel it is shocking of our NHS that we need a campaign to introduce ourselves if indeed we are struggling to do this how can we ever program to engaging in patient led sensitive conversations and need to address underlying issues as a culture exists that don't do this.

6 | P a g e

Conclusion

This conference attracted delegates from every area in Scotland and from all health disciplines. The high level of delegate subscription suggests a great deal of interest in the subject matter. However despite intense promotion, the social care workforce largely did not choose to attend this event. We had two delegates in total from social work at the conference.

The delegate feedback suggests this was a highly successful event where the vast majority of delegates have benefitted immensely from attending what proved to be a very stimulating, reflective and thought provoking conference.

Recommendations

Given the delegate feedback, the recommendation is to continue to provide a Spiritual Care Conference, if not on an annual basis, then certainly on a bi-annual basis.

Taking note of delegate feedback; if we were to use the same venue in the future then certain guarantees will be sought from the hotel management to minimise some of the complaints we have noted on this occasion.

George BeukenHead of Pastoral Care & Education

01/11/2018

7 | P a g e