Major care for the dying project comes to North East

Marie Curie Cancer Care will launch its seventh site in the Marie Curie Delivering Choice Programme in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear this month.

The Delivering Choice Programme is a major palliative care programme which enables patients with terminal illnesses to have choice over their place of care and death.

The Northumberland, Tyne and Wear project will officially launch on March 25, at the Hilton Newcastle Gateshead Hotel. The project will cover the entire area of Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, a population of 1.5 million people and will last for a period of three years.

In this region, currently 60 per cent of people with a terminal illness spend their last days in a hospital or hospice; only 18 per cent are able to die at home. Marie Curie Cancer Care’s research has found that most people (65 per cent, YouGov. 2008) in the UK would like to die at home if they had a terminal illness. The programme aims to increase the numbers of people who can access choice in relation to place of care and death.

Over the last 10 years there have been many improvement initiatives in palliative and end of life care across Northumberland, Tyne and Wear. This project offers even more opportunities to develop responsive care and services that give choice to patients. It should also facilitate greater partnership working in the region. This Delivering Choice Programme is the first major review and service modernisation programme in end of life care that reaches across North and South of Tyne.

Helen King, Senior Project Manager, Marie Curie Cancer Care, said:
“The scope of the Northumberland, Tyne and Wear Marie Curie Delivering Choice makes it quite a challenge. However, this challenge is a much welcomed one by all the partners in the project. In the North East, there is a tradition of innovation, great passion and energy in this area already and our project will build on that to give more people and their carers the best experience possible.”

Chris Reed, chief executive of NHS North of Tyne, working on behalf of Newcastle PCT, North Tyneside PCT and Northumberland Care Trust, said:
“I am delighted to be working in partnership with Marie Curie Cancer Care to launch this project which is a step in transforming end of life care for patients in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear.

“End of life care is a priority set out in our five year plan and we are engaging with families and organisations such as Marie Curie to give terminally ill patients a choice of health services to enable them to have a dignified and peaceful end to their lives.”
There are already six other projects in the Marie Curie Delivering Choice Programme – in Lincolnshire, Tayside (Scotland), Leeds, Barnet (North London), South East London and Somerset.

ENDS

For more information, please contact:

Eva Morrison, Public Affairs Manager, Marie Curie Cancer Care, on 0207 599 7703 / eva.morrison@mariecurie.org.uk

Notes to editors:
The Northumberland, Tyne and Wear Marie Curie Delivering Choice Programme will launch at the Hilton Hotel, Bottle Bank, Gateshead, NE8 2AR on March 25, 2009 at 4pm.

The event will be chaired by Mr Stephen Clark, Chairman South Tyneside PCT, and Chairman of NHS South of Tyne and Wear Commissioning Board. Speakers include Dr Mary Comiskey, Consultant in Specialist Palliative Care, Mr Chris Reed, Chief Executive, NHS North of Tyne, and Thomas Hughes-Hallett, Chief Executive, Marie Curie Cancer Care. Registration, refreshments and photo call from 4pm; and welcome and opening remarks from 4:30pm. The event will close at 6pm.

Stakeholders involved with the project include:
Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust , Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Trust, Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust, City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, The Care Sector through English Community Care Association, Carers Centres, Carers Leads, Macmillan, Northern Doctors Urgent Care, North East Ambulance Service NHS Trust, Northern Doctors Urgent Care, GatDoc, Newcastle and North Tyneside Community Services, Northumberland Care Trust, St Oswald’s Hospice – Newcastle, Marie Curie Hospice – Newcastle, Marie Curie Nursing Service, Primary Care, Voluntary sector providers, General
Practitioners, LiNKs, St Benedict’s Hospice, Sunderland, North Northumberland Hospice, NHS South of Tyne and Wear, NHS North of Tyne, Tynedale Community Hospice, NHS North East, St Clare’s Hospice – Jarrow, Practice Based Commissioners, Relevant Clinical networks in the North East, Local authorities across North and South of Tyne.

The Marie Curie Delivering Choice Programme

• The Marie Curie Delivering Choice Programme was pioneered by Marie Curie Cancer Care to develop the best possible services for palliative care, in order to give people with terminal illnesses the choice over where they are cared for and die.
• The programme involves a partnership approach. Working with the NHS, social services and the voluntary sector, it works to understand the current state of services in specific project areas and redesign those that are inadequate, as well as introduce new services so that the specific palliative care needs of local communities are properly addressed.
• The Lincolnshire project was launched in October 2004, followed by Tayside (Scotland) in October 2005, Leeds in May 2006, Barnet (North London) in March 2007, in South East London in September 2007 and in Somerset in June 2008.
• Every project runs for three years and involves three phases – Phase I: understanding the current state of services within the project area; Phase II: improving and designing new service models; and Phase III: implementing and monitoring the service models. After the three years, the view is to hand the interventions over to the local partners to be sustained over the longer term.
• The programme reaches patients with life-limiting illnesses – irrespective of diagnosis – and their carers.
• The Marie Curie Delivering Choice Programme is independently evaluated by a research team at Lancaster University, led by Professor Sheila Payne, as well as research think-tank, the King’s Fund.
• Results from the King’s Fund evaluation on the Delivering Choice Programme in Lincolnshire show that for patients benefiting from the services:
  • Deaths at home are UP from 17 per cent to 42 per cent.
  • Deaths in hospital are DOWN from 63 per cent to 45 per cent.
  • Total costs for end of life care did not increase.

Marie Curie Cancer Care

• Marie Curie Cancer Care is one of the UK’s largest charities. It is the lead provider of specialist palliative care, and its nurses care for half of all patients with cancer who die at home.
• Employing more than 2,700 nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals, the charity provides care to around 25,000 people with cancer every year, and also supports their families.
• The charity also cares for people with life-limiting illnesses other than cancer, and its services are always free of charge to patients and their families, which mean that in 2008-09, it will need to raise more than £100 million.
• Marie Curie Cancer Care has 10 hospices across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and two centres for palliative care research. It also runs the world-renowned Marie Curie Research Institute, which investigates the causes and treatments of cancer.
• Research commissioned by Marie Curie Cancer Care has found that most people in Great Britain would like to be cared for at home (65%) or in a hospice (23%) if they were terminally ill, but the reality is that half of all patients still die in hospitals. Only 4% of people would actually choose to die in hospital.