Response Shaping Bereavement Care Action Plan

Consultation body

Shaping Bereavement Care

Response date

December 2010

Focus of consultation

Shaping Bereavement Care Action Plan

We welcome the initiative which recognises the importance of bereavement care and the need to improve service responses. The proposals knit well with the Scottish Government's policy for palliative care

A general comment is to observe that the document rightly states (page 8, point 5) that the term ‘bereavement care… may cover a spectrum of services from informal and formal befriending approaches, to care provided by health and social care practitoners’ yet the document is directed very specifically at NHS Boards (page 7 point 7). To what extent will local authorities and the social care practitioners be expected to ‘comply’ with this document? We note that NHS bereavement care services are to promote a co-ordinated approach in partnership with other service providers, relevant external agencies and third sector bodies. This is a welcome development.

We welcome the endorsement that there should be equal access to high quality bereavement care across Scotland, to be achieved through the delivery of a planned and consistent approach to awareness, training and education, available to all staff. Given the above desire for close co-operation with other agencies it would be of enormous benefit if such training could be open to other providers.

In response to question 1 we agree with a); we agree with all the statements in questions 2, 3, and 4. With regard to question 5, very little happens in relation to people with dementia – there is very little understanding of bereavement and dementia and little understanding of the spiritual needs of people with dementia and their carers.

Bereavement and Dementia

The inclusion of an awareness of the specific impact of loss on those close to someone with dementia is very crucial to meeting their support needs appropriately. Carers often describe suffering a ‘living bereavement’ as the personality of the person they care for disintegrates often some time before death occurs. Dementia is a terminal illness and in the end-stages the person may plummet and then recover several times over – the unpredictability of the illness is very hard for family members to endure. The quality of palliative care will impact on how family members/partners respond to the death of their relative. There is very little literature on this subject.

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