What is palliative care?
A specialised niche
When it comes to the care sector, the profession is mostly about helping people get back to their best following accident or illness, or supporting those with long-term conditions.
However, there is one area of care work that is neither of those things – and that’s providing care and support to those for whom a full recovery is not likely, or possible.
It takes a special type of person and a specific set of skills to care for the most vulnerable people at such a sensitive time of life. How can care employees qualify and prepare for it professionally? What skills are required to ensure the highest level of care and comfort? How do professionals demonstrate that they are qualified to work in this niche?
Join tend as we look into this subject in deeper detail.
What actually is palliative care?
Palliative care is a specialist approach to supporting people with terminal or severely limiting illnesses or conditions. Those working in this area are tasked with helping these kinds of patients maintain their dignity and emotional wellbeing, while providing comfort and the highest quality of life possible.
Areas of expertise for palliative care workers include:
- Management of symptoms
- Psychological and Emotional support
- Compassionate communication
- Carer and family support
- End-of-life planning
- Choice, comfort, and dignity-based decision making
- Holistic care
Palliative care can be delivered in various environments, including:
- Care homes
- Domiciles (home care)
- Hospices
- Hospitals
- Community setting
Palliative care is not just given in a patient’s final days. It can involve supporting people who need it for months, or even years.
What are the core palliative care skills workers need?
Palliative care workers need to have all the same skills a general care worker has, plus an advanced layer of emotional, interpersonal, and communication capabilities.
Here’s detailed rundown of the skills required for quality palliative care:
- Emotional and interpersonal skills
- Deep empathy and compassion
- Elevated levels of patience and understanding
- Exceptional communication skills
- Emotional resilience
- Respect for the dignity of others
- Practical skills
- Symptom management
- End-of-life personal care
- Safe moving and handling
- Nutrition and hydration awareness
- Specialist knowledge and behaviours
- Understanding loss, grief and bereavement
- Cultural and spiritual sensitivity
- Remaining calm in a crisis
- Interdisciplinary teamwork skills
If you’re the kind of person who can listen without judgement, break news gently, communicate calmly with people in distress, remain calm in a crisis, and approach everything in life with kindness, you may just be the perfect candidate for palliative care work.
Can apprenticeships help you gain these skills?
Absolutely. However, something to bear in mind is that very few health and adult care workers begin or go straight into palliative care. Instead, it’s something care professionals would progress to through a structured career development pathway.
Apprenticeships are fantastic for confidence and competence building. Plus, they provide the practical and academic knowledge needed to work in a palliative role.
For example:
- Apprenticeships take learners beyond the classroom – because learning happens alongside the individual’s day-to-day working role, it means hands-on experience can be gained in real-world settings, while also getting the benefit of world-class, academic tutelage.
- Role and sector-specific learning – the great thing about apprenticeships is that they are developed with the working world in mind. If you choose tend as your training provider, their alignment with the care sector, coupled with years of expertise and qualified Development Coaches delivering the learning, you will set yourself up for success, as well as fulfilment, and the ability to deliver world-class care excellence.
- A clear, career-building pathway – with a level of learning for every professional tier of the care sector, individual learners and teams alike can zone into the exact skill set that will both equip and elevate employees, filing the care sector with capable, confident and qualified employees.
- An education in emotional intelligence – candidates will be coached throughout their programmes to embrace reflective practice. Apprenticeships not only teach people what to do, but also, to examine the self, observing behaviours and habits that could potentially become blockers to brilliance. This promotes a sensitivity that is perfect for palliative care workers.
These things, coupled with the close collaboration with and support from the learner’s employer, and you get a learner journey that is intrinsically linked to the working life that will follow the course’s completion.
What impact can palliative care workers have?
A tremendous amount. Not only are you a meaningful presence for the patients, but also for their loved ones. Palliative care workers provide reassurance, reduce fear, and improve the quality of life for patients and families alike.
The very act of palliative care is not about death and dying. It’s about ensuring quality of life, and helping people to live as well as possible right until the very end.
At tend, we’ve talked to many of our former learners who are now active palliative care workers within the sector. Most of them have reflected on how rewarding they find the work, saying it’s amongst the most meaningful areas of care to work in.
Final thoughts
Palliative care requires a special kind of care worker, attuned to people’s needs in a way that speaks to a deeper level of empathy and compassion.
Apprenticeships present a clear pathway to progression into roles of a palliative care nature. From Level 2, to Level 3, and Lead Practitioner, employees can then choose to specialise, become hospice professionals and perhaps, eventually become hospice managers.
Whatever path people choose to take, working in care is an impactful and fulfilling career for those who love to help others. Palliative care ensures the people who need it most get the care they need for the remainder of their time on this Earth. For any care professional, it doesn’t get more meaningful than that.
Ready to discuss your (or your team’s) progression into palliative care? Reach out to our team today. Call 01753 596 004 or hit the button below.
