LJMU train 40 Mersey Care matrons and nurses in anticipatory and advanced care planning

LJMU has delivered training to 40 Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust matrons and nurse specialists to enhance the process in which patients discuss with health and social care providers their plans for future treatment and care.

The School of Nursing and Advanced Practice welcomed the Mersey Care staff to its health education facilities across four study days this autumn to further their skills and knowledge of anticipatory care planning and advanced care planning. The study days included a focus on theory and case study learning as well as role play and scenario-based activities, delivered by healthcare experts at the university.  

Anticipatory and advanced care planning is a voluntary process of person-centred discussion between an individual and their care providers about their preferences and priorities for their future care.

It is common for frail or elderly patients, those with learning disabilities or people entering end of life care to have these conversations so that they feel confident their care and treatment will be personalised, focused on what matters most to them and that helps them to live as well as possible. It includes things like the sort of medical interventions they may or may not want if they become very ill as well as the legal considerations of advanced care planning including advanced refusals, capacity testing, best interests, deprivation of liberties and do not resuscitate decisions.

Mersey Care community matrons and specialist nurses are instrumental in starting these conversations and putting plans in place alongside those involved in a patients’ care such as GPs, community physiotherapists, district nurses, care home managers and community geriatricians.

It is the first time that LJMU has collaborated with Mersey Care to deliver advanced training on this subject, and it is hoped that patients across the region will benefit from the collaboration as the learning is put into practice when NHS professionals discuss preferences and priorities with patients and their families as they make plans for their future care.

Dr Julie Williams, Director of the School of Nursing and Advanced Practice at LJMU, said: “When anticipatory and advanced care planning is done well, people should feel that they have ownership over the process. That they have been treated with respect and sensitivity. That the right people have been involved during shared decision-making that takes into account what really matters to the individual.

“What’s especially important is that this is a proactive process, and it’s nurses like those working across Mersey Care that play a vital role in starting these conversations with their patients. It’s crucial that they are equipped with the skills and knowledge to undertake this part of their role to the best of their ability, as an advocate for the patient. It’s brilliant that LJMU is able to support the continuous professional development of staff from our local NHS trust in this important area of patient care and we hope to deliver this training again in the future.”