Leaflets for Patients and Carers
Harris HospisCare with St Christopher’s has produced a range of information leaflets for patients and carers. These are available to pick up in the hospice and from your home care nurse. They can also be read online.
Healthcare professionals and other organisations may use this material providing Harris HospisCare with St Christopher’s is credited as author. Copyright remains with Harris HospisCare with St Christopher’s. For further information regarding use of leaflet material, please contact Nicola Rattray, Communications Manager on tel: 020 8768 4585 or email: nicola.rattray@harrishospiscare.org.uk
Additional information on medicines used in symptom control
This leaflet contains further information on your medicines and the way that we sometimes use them in palliative care. If you have any more questions please ask your doctor, nurse or pharmacist.
Advance Care Planning
This leaflet explains how to consider your choices and preferences for the future - if you have any other questions, we hope you will talk them over with a member of staff who will be glad to help.
Bereavement
Most people will experience bereavement at some time in their life. Everyone reacts to their loss in their own unique way. Grief can be very painful and may give rise to feelings and thoughts that you don’t expect.
Breathlessness
Breathlessness can affect different individuals in different ways.
This leaflet provides some simple information about this distressing condition. We can help your understanding of this sometimes frightening symptom and offer advice on how to adapt your breathing through practical tips, simple exercises and relaxation techniques…
Candle: Children and Funerals
Parents and carers want to do the best for their children, and it is very hard to know what is best for them when a death has happened.You are trying to come to terms with what has happened, cope with painful and difficult feelings, and there are so many decisions and choices to be made.
This leaflet has been written to help you think about your children and the funeral, why they should have the chance to go, and how to answer some of their questions.
Candle: Children, Young People and Loss
All of us face an enormous challenge when someone close to us dies, or is very ill. At such times it can feel very hard to know how best to help children and young people affected by the loss.
Candle: How to help your bereaved child
You may be bereaved yourself, and may be finding it hard to keep your child’s needs in mind with all that is happening.The following points are a guide to help you focus on what is going on for them.
Caring for someone with advanced dementia
This leaflet has been compiled by nurses from the Care Home Project Team at St Christopher’s in collaboration with nurses from dementia care units to help support relatives of people with advanced dementia living and dying in care homes.
Many people do not realise that dementia is a progressive disease. This leaflet outlines some of the changes you may see as the health of a person with dementia deteriorates. Care home staff will be able to help you understand and cope with the symptoms experienced by your relative or friend with dementia. The leaflet also suggests where you can find more information.
Choosing and moving to a care home
This leaflet aims to provide helpful information for people who are considering moving to a care home. It is particularly for inpatients at St Christopher's Hospice and their families, or for people being helped by St Christopher’s or Harris HospisCare home care teams.
Clostridium difficile (C.diff)
This leaflet gives you information on Clostridium difficile (C. diff) and how St Christopher’s is working to control it.
Coming to St Christopher’s Hospice as an inpatient
This leaflet explains what you can expect as an inpatient at St Christopher's.
We hope to answer your concerns by concentrating on the most commonly asked questions. If you have any more questions please ask your doctor or nurse.
Community support volunteers
This leaflet explains what you can expect from the St Christopher's Group community support volunteer service. We hope to answer the most commonly asked questions. If you have any more questions please ask your doctor or nurse.
Complementary therapies
This leaflet explains about complementary therapies available at St Christopher’s and Harris HospisCare – if you have any other questions, we hope you will talk them over with a member of staff who will be glad to help. If you are thinking of using another complementary therapy service, please ask us for further information.
Consent – what you have a right to expect
Before any doctor, nurse or therapist examines or treats you, they must seek your permission or ‘consent’ to do so. This could simply mean following their suggestions, such as your GP asking to have a look at your throat and you showing your consent by opening your mouth. Sometimes they will ask you to sign a form, depending on the seriousness of what they’re proposing or whether it carries risks as well as benefits.
It does not matter so much how you show your consent: whether you sign or say you agree. What is important is that your consent is genuine or valid.
Coping with dying
This leaflet describes some of the physical changes that happen to people as they start to die.
It anticipates some of the questions you may want to ask about what is happening and why, and encourages you to ask for further help or information if there is anything at all that is worrying you.
Cornea and tissue donation
This leaflet explains about cornea and tissue donation - and how the donation of a cornea or other tissue can help change lives
Difficulty Sleeping
Lots of people have a problem with sleeping at some time during their lives. If you are ill, sleep can be hard because of anxiety, worry about treatment, fears about the future, or just because you are going through a stressful time in your life. This leaflet provides information for patients and carers on what to do if you have difficulty sleeping.
Fluids and the use of artificial hydration
This leaflet answers some frequently asked questions about fluids and the use of artificial hydration (fluid intake given by a drip) in advanced illness.
It is aimed mainly at carers, but some patients may also find this information helpful.
Frequently asked questions about blood transfusions
This leaflet gives information about blood transfusions. We hope to answer your concerns by concentrating on the most commonly asked questions. If you have any more questions please ask your doctor or nurse.
Frequently asked questions about cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
This leaflet gives information about the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) policy for inpatients at St Christopher’s Hospice and patients attending the day units at St Christopher's and Harris HospisCare.
You and people close to you may find it helpful to go through this leaflet with a doctor or nurse in case you have any further questions or concerns.
Frequently asked questions about morphine
This leaflet gives information about pain control and morphine. We hope to answer your concerns by concentrating on the most commonly asked questions. If you have any more questions please ask your doctor or nurse.
Harris HospisCare home care service
This leaflet aims to answer the most commonly asked questions about the Harris HospisCare with St Christopher’s home care service. If you have any more questions please ask your doctor or nurse.
Healthcare associated infection - how you can help reduce it
Infection control is everyone’s responsiblity. This leaflet aims to help patients and their visitors understand the importance of preventing infection.
Help during your bereavement
When someone dies who is important to us, it can leave an empty space in our lives and it is natural to experience strong feelings. Perhaps you feel sad that they are no longer with you, bad that you could not do enough, guilt about your relief that they no longer have to suffer illness or frailty, anxious about how your life will be changed.
There may also be practical problems for you and other people who share your loss, such as children or family members.
How to complain or comment about our services
Your comments help to improve our services.
We improve our services by listening to and learning from your comments and complaints. Please talk to any of our staff at any time. You can also put a note in the suggestion box at the hospice in the Anniversary Centre – you don’t have to give your name.
If you are a patient or carer, you are welcome to attend a User Forum. Ask a member of staff for details.
Information for carers
This leaflet aims to answer the most commonly asked questions about being a carer of a Harris HospisCare patient. If you have any more questions please ask your doctor or nurse.
Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA)
This leaflet has been devised to help patients and their visitors to understand MRSA.
We hope to answer your concerns by concentrating on the most commonly asked questions. If you have any more questions please ask your doctor or nurse.
Preparing for a funeral
A funeral is a significant event. It may not be easy to think about, whether your own or that of a relative; how best to commemorate a life; what to include or leave out, for example. However, planning a funeral can be helpful for those who are approaching the end of life and is one way of ensuring that their wishes are respected.
This leaflet aims to help you consider some of the important things involved.
The Caritas Centre
The Caritas Centre has been designed to create a relaxed, therapeutic environment for patients and families. The centre provides a range of medical, nursing and support services for patients and carers coping with a life-limiting illness.
Our aim is to provide you with a variety of specialist services. You may prefer to access many services during one visit, or to spread out appointments to suit your needs.
User forum – an invitation to tell us what you think about our services
What is a User Forum?
It is a meeting of patients and carers with some Harris HospisCare staff. We meet twice a year to discuss the services Harris HospisCare provides, and look at ways they could be improved. The meetings are led by staff who are not responsible for day-to-day care, to help you feel comfortable about speaking openly and honestly about the services you receive from the hospice.
Your care will not be affected by taking part. We need your honest views, comments and constructive criticism about Harris HospisCare and the services we offer.
Why won't they eat?
This leaflet aims to answer frequently asked questions about appetite and weight loss when the person you are caring for is very ill. It accompanies the one on fluids and the use of artifical hydration in advanced disease and is aimed mainly at carers. However, some patients may also find this information helpful.
Your information: how we use and keep it
We receive a lot of personal information about you from you, your family and other services. We need this information so that we can provide you with proper care and treatment.
Members of the hospice team looking after you may share your personal information with each other. This team may include nurses, doctors, therapists, pharmacists and clerical support staff plus students and trainees in medicine or other health and social care professionals who are looking after you.
