Pop Up: A New Model Of Paediatric Palliative Care

Pop Up: A New Model Of Paediatric Palliative Care

Martha F Mherekumombe; Jude Frost; Sue Hanson; Elizabeth Shepherd; John Collins

doi:10.1111/jpc.13276

Journal Of Paediatrics And Child Health

2016

Pediatrics; Team

Children and young people who require palliative care have aheterogeneous range of life-limiting conditions such as a malig-nant disease, chromosomal, neurodegenerative and genetic meta-bolic disorders. The benefits of paediatric palliative care (PPC)continue to be recognised across the world. This increased aware-ness has led to the development of new services and the expan-sion of local programmes globally. The delivery of PPC differs invarious parts of the world depending on available resources,finances, availability of health professionals trained in the care ofchildren requiring palliative care and local health policies.1Healthprofessionals with formal training in the provision of specialistpaediatric palliative care (SPPC) are an integral part of PPC serv-ice delivery. Despite the fact that this area of medicine is a grow-ing field, children in many parts of the world still have no accessto any form of palliative care.2Even in developed countries, most SPPC services are located incities and are found within clinical services provided at tertiarychildren’s hospitals, provided by a team trained to care for thephysical, psychosocial, emotional, spiritual and practical needs ofthe child and family. This team provides the complex care andsupport that children and young people with a life limiting illnessneed as a consequence of high medical need and complicationsrelated to their primary disorder.3–6The SPPC team works inpartnership with families and other carers to improve the qualityof life of the child or young person. The SPPC team can facilitatea multimodal approach to difficult symptom management andhelp link families with appropriate home care, hospital and com-munity services.7

Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).

September 2016 List