Case Study: Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust improves end-of-life care with NHS Employers

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust - Customer Case Study

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust worked with NHS Employers to strengthen end-of-life care across its three main hospital sites. The trust needed a more consistent approach to staff education as referrals to palliative and end-of-life care increased, particularly at weekends, and it wanted training to become part of standard practice for clinical staff.

NHS Employers supported the trust in making end-of-life care training mandatory and in building a wider programme that included workshops, bite-sized sessions, e-learning, and partnership training with local hospice and university providers. The results included improved staff confidence and communication, fewer readmissions, stronger audit scores, and a major drop in complaints and poor bereaved-family feedback; communications quality improved from 90% to 96% between 2011 and 2016, and the Alexandra Hospital was below the national average for acute-setting deaths at 38% in 2013.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust