The Irish Hospice Foundation has developed a new resource to help doctors and other healthcare staff when they are treating patients at the end of their lives.

Around 29,000 people die every year in Ireland, with almost half of these dying in busy acute hospitals. Of these, at least two in three die on hospital wards, while the remainder die in intensive care units or emergency departments (EDs).

The resource, Competence & Compassion: End-of-Life Care Map, covers issues such as recognising a progressive deterioration in health, planning end-of-life care with patients, communicating decisions about CPR and caring for a deceased patient.

"Healthcare staff involved in specialist palliative care provide care for patients with complex conditions. But not all patients who die in our hospitals will require specialist support. However, every dying person can benefit from the hospice philosophy of care, which emphasises the physical, emotional, social and spiritual wellbeing of the patient and which can be delivered by all doctors and healthcare staff," explained palliative medicine consultant, Dr Regina McQuillan.

She insisted that the care map will be a ‘valuable resource' to healthcare staff whose patients are at the end of their lives.

"It provides practical advice they can consider in their efforts to ensure that their patient has a comfortable death and their family receives the support they need," she pointed out.

According to the Hospice Foundation's CEO, Sharon Foley, this resource was prepared following ‘rigorous research and in consultation with a wide range of staff'.

"It is part of an ongoing effort to ensure that end-of-life care goes from the margins to the mainstream in our hospitals," she added.

The resource was developed by the foundation's Hospice Friendly Hospitals (HFH) programme, which aims to put hospice principles into practice in hospitals.