Hospital Macmillan Specialist Palliative Care Team - Fairfield Hospital [Bury]

The Hospital Macmillan Specialist Palliative Care Team provides:

• Direct patient care where palliative care needs are complex and cannot be met by the patients treating hospital team.
• Indirect patient care through advice and education of generalist colleagues.

Palliative care is the active holistic care of patients with any advanced progressive illness. This may include, for example, cancer, neurological conditions, respiratory (chest) conditions, and others.  A key focus of palliative care is to manage pain and other physical symptoms, however providing psychological, social and spiritual support are also important aims.  Although some people may associate palliative care with treatment towards the end of life, many aspects of palliative care are also applicable earlier in the course of an illness in conjunction with other treatments.

As part of palliative care you may be offered the opportunity to discuss what is most important to you, and to plan for your future.  This process, called “advance care planning” can include making choices about treatments which you may or may not want to have in the future, or for example, how and where you may want to be cared for.

The goal of palliative care is to achieve the best quality of life for patients and their families.