Funding boost to enhance palliative care in Wigan

Patients receiving end-of-life care and palliative will now have better support every day of the week as a charity’s scheme receives funding from healthcare commissioners.

Macmillan Cancer Support invested £2m in a pilot project to enhance the seven-day service of palliative care in both Wigan and Salford around 18 months ago.

Previously, there were fewer clinicians available to see patients at weekends and bank holidays, so Wigan’s Macmillan Specialist Palliative Care Service could not provide the same level of care as at weekends.

This sometimes meant people were taken to busy A&E departments by ambulance instead to get the support they needed.

But Macmillan decided to investment £2m to change this, in a partnership co-ordinated by Greater Manchester Cancer and delivered through Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust, Wigan and Leigh Hospice, Salford Royal Hospital and St Ann’s Hospice.

It allowed them to appointment more staff and provide advanced clinical skills and prescribing training.

It has made such a difference that the services have now secured recurrent funding after showing improvements in outcomes for palliative and end-of-life patients across Wigan and Salford.

It is hoped the success of the test models can demonstrate the potential for seven-day specialist palliative care and support across the region.

Jane Melvin, head of partnerships North and North West for Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “We are delighted that through Macmillan’s £2m funding there is now seven-day, year-round, face-to-face senior clinical care for patients and families requiring end-of-life and palliative care in Wigan and Salford.

“It is delivering improved outcomes to patients and will now be sustained going forward, which is what all partners hoped when we entered into this partnership.”

Jo Carby, clinical director at Wigan and Leigh Hospice, said: “This project has meant we’ve been able to provide two specialist community nurses at weekends and bank holidays rather than one, which significantly increased the care and support we are able to provide across Wigan for patients and those people caring for them in their own homes or care homes.”

Dr Jenny Wiseman, palliative medicine consultant at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust and project lead, said: “This Macmillan-funded project has enabled us to increase the staffing and enhance skills of the hospital palliative care team so that two nurse specialists work each weekend day and a senior doctor does face-to-face assessments in the hospital and community during weekends.

“We see daily the benefits of this collaborative work with our hospital and community colleagues to really make a difference to the support patients, their families and our staff receive.

“We are delighted that funding has been agreed so this essential service can continue.”