Philosophy
The Hospice of the Good Shepherd exists to provide and promote the highest total care possible for people with advanced cancer, motorneurone disease, multiple sclerosis, Huntington's chorea and AIDS, and to provide help and support to their families and other individuals important to their care.
Hospice Philosophy
Our philosophy is one which affirms life and is a concept for caring and living.
The Hospice exists to provide skilled care and support for patients and their families, from diagnosis of incurable illness through to the final phase, enabling patients to live as full a life as possible within the limitations of their illness and a peaceful and dignified death at the end of life.
Our Aims:
To achieve this philosophy we will endeavour to maintain the values that are the essence of care and strive to affirm the patient as a unique and valued individual.
Preserve the quality of life, dignity and independence of the patient.
Provide an environment where the patient's family and friends-support and help them cope during the patient's illness and during their bereavement.
Affirm life and regard death as a normal process and neither hasten nor postpone death.
Provide relief from pain and other distressing symptoms.
Meet the physiological, social and spiritual needs of patients and their carers through a holistic approach.
Enable the spiritual needs of patients and their relatives to be met in accordance with their human beliefs and wishes inking, where appropriate, with their own or hospice chaplain.
Allow patients and their families the choice, wherever practical, to die at a place of their choosing, whether at home, hospital or in the Hospice.
Work as a multidisciplinary team to achieve our values and beliefs for the ultimate benefit of our patients.
Educate and train our staff and encourage personal and professional development.
Acknowledge the need for staff support, avoiding undue stress through inappropriate demands on our team without realistic support.
Advance the understanding and rational treatment of progressive disease through participation in appropriate research.
Maintain high standards of care and seek to enhance these through evaluation and implementation.
Respect and work with all other disciplines and agencies, encouraging, through education and good communication a wider knowledge base of palliative care.
