Saint Michael’s achieves strategic goal to support more people with any terminal illness to access the care they need

As an organisation shaped by the growing, changing, and complex needs of our community, Saint Michael’s is committed to ensuring more local people with any terminal illness get the high-quality care, comfort, and support they need.

In 2017, as part of a three-year 2020 Vision strategy, we set ourselves a goal to extend our expertise to support more people with conditions such as heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), dementia and motor neurone disease, who we know can often miss out on getting the right care at the right time.

Year on year, working in collaboration with our health and social care partners, we have we have developed the availability, accessibility, and quality of our services to achieve this goal – for example offering increasingly person-centred care to those affected by dementia through our Purple Thread project.

This work has included appointment of Dementia Champions within our organisation, adapting patient care environments to the needs of those living with dementia through bespoke signage and equipment, and the introduction of specialist training across our teams.

It is only together – in partnership across all organisations working with people who are living with terminal illness, and with the ongoing support of our wonderful community – that we can meet a rising demand and continue to find effective, innovative approaches to provide high quality, personalised services regardless of where people are receiving care and the complexities of their needs.