Embracing palliative care within compassionate communities: a personal viewpoint

摘要

The idea of compassionate communities has been gaining momentum in the UK and across many Western countries. It is being promoted and encouraged in different formats and modalities, for example via national policy (National End of Life Care Partnership, 2015) and articles (Abel et al 2013; Abel, 2018), to name a few.The emphasis in all the evidence is to build communities that care for each other during ill-health, life-threatening diagnosis and other incapacitating conditions in life. We are witnessing the development of networks of support with a range of functions: symptoms control, emotional support, help with activities of daily living and simply friendship. Abel et al (2013) proposed a model they called 'Circles of care', which clearly shows how communities can embrace not only the person with the illness or problem, but also work closely with other networks, the community, service delivery and professional carers, as well as policy makers. Taking this approach to care enriches the patient's life and may mitigate against complex bereavement reactions for grieving family members (Abel et al, 2013). Dying people are considered vulnerable and at times disadvantaged. One of the main reasons for compassionate communities in palliative care is to redress the inequalities of end-of-life care for all, regardless of diagnosis, prognosis or other factors. The suggestion is that end-of-life care is everybody's business and the community should always have a role.