"Allowing dad to die at home"

Dad had a palliative cancer diagnosis and passed away at home this week. Dad wished to die at home and managed to do this through the support of health and social care. From Professor Barber being open, honest and upfront about diagnosis, to the GP putting anything in place to support dad, and couldn't have happened without the following:

Deborah at Coatbridge IRT team putting all equipment in place

Discharge team at Monklands Hospital (Sadie, Arlene and Lynne) making sure all supports were in place

District Nurses  (in particular Anne and Gillian) offering support for all medical and nursing input and putting Marie Curie nurses in place for overnight support where possible

Paul at Macmillan nurses making sure all correct medicine put in place and referring to appropriate places

Intensive team at Coatbridge homecare putting practical support in place with short notice an increasing urgently and in particular Angela who went way about and beyond to get dad support to move downstairs (his final wish)

Pauline and Dilini at Coatbridge social work to get supports in place such as homecare and alert.

Without all of this integrated approach my dad wouldn't have had his wish of being able to die at home - all of the above supported my dad to die at home, comfortable, content, pain free and with dignity, and also supported us as a family. Having the open and honest discussion from the start allowed my dad to plan his funeral, put all his affairs in order and have the quality time with family to say his final goodbyes.

As a family we cannot thanks everyone enough. The one area which we felt lacked was being able to access the equipment team over the weekend, as I am sure you are aware peoples needs (or need for equipment) does not fit into office hours and as such might be worth considering an additional support to access equipment outside office hours.