Palliative care and end of life support

We have recently achieved Beacon status as an accredited GSF care home under the Gold Standards Framework in Care Homes Quality Hallmark Awards. This recognises the excellent levels of care we provide at the Acton Care Centre.

We’re committed to celebrating life with all its difficulties. In our experience managing life includes preparing for death and dying. To make your stay a peaceful one, our aim is to promote excellent care for our patients near the end of their life. Of course this does not only apply to patients who have a specific terminal illness.

Contact our Clinical Director, Julie Bignell or our Patient Affairs Manager, Sylwia Czepukowicz on 020 8896 5600 for more details.

Nursing

Trained nursing staff are on duty 24-hours a day at the centre. Every patient is seen by the same nurse and key worker to look after their needs. All our palliative care units are managed by a senior nurse, who leads a team of experienced nurses and NVQ-trained health care assistants.

Our nurses are also helped by external health professionals. They include Macmillan nurses, dieticians and speech therapists.

General medical care

• Local GP service: we have a partnership with the local GP service, where local GPs visit patients three times a week. Each unit has their own GP, who will get to know their patients’ individual needs. If they prefer, patients are welcome to keep their own GP, if that GP can travel to our centre. Out of hours services are provided by Harmoni
• Chiropody: we arrange a regular private chiropody service for our patients and encourage them to use this as the NHS service has a long waiting list
• Counselling and advocacy: these can be arranged for patients facing difficult circumstances
• Physiotherapy:for intensive and specialist treatments, we can arrange private physiotherapist treatment or a referral to the NHS Physiotherapy Service
• Dental health: we can arrange private and NHS dental treatment for all our new patients at the centre 
• Eye test: the optician visits the centre on a regular basis and eye tests are free for all patients
• Pharmacy services all general and specialist medicines are supplied directly to the centre

We also offer the following to all our patients:

• Any specialist medical attention needed is available at the centre
• Patients can continue to see their own GPs if they want to
• A range of medical support is provided within the fees
• Qualified nurses are always on duty
• Advocacy is available if needed
• Patients’ medicines will be administered by qualified nursing staff

Acton Care Centre is an accredited GSF care home