Forrester Court nursing home helps families with end of life care

Home news

Dec 13, 2011

Forrester Court is helping to make its elderly residents’ last few days dignified and peaceful as it opens an End of Life suite for relatives.

Care UK’s Forrester Court home has recently opened up the suite that allows relatives to spend the last days with their loved ones. The room, which has two single beds, a TV and a stereo, is designed to give residents the choice of staying in the home they love, with the people they love, rather than moving to an unknown hospital ward with unfamiliar staff.

The home’s manager Jemma Craig-Dressekie said: “Choice and dignity is very important when you care for people. This is our residents’ home and, if they choose to die here rather than in a hospital, we want not only to be able to respect their wishes but to accommodate their loved ones as well.

“This is a sensitive time and it is so much better to be surrounded by the people you love as well as having access to first class medical care delivered by people you know.”

Jemma and her team have worked very closely with local GPs and the primary care trust to ensure that the residents’ medical needs are accommodated. Before the suite was opened, half of residents had no choice but to move to hospital for end of life care. This has now dropped to 25 per cent and Jemma and her team hope that eventually all of those wishing to stay in their home will be able to do so.

Carer Julius Adesanya, who spends time working with the relatives, said: “Three families have used the suite and they have been so happy to spend unlimited time with their relatives at the end.

“Staying at home is a lot less stressful than moving to a hospital and this gives people a chance to say goodbye in their own way.”

Forrester Court provides long and short term residential and nursing care for 110 people aged over 65 who are physically frail, with high dependency needs, or who have dementia. The home, in Cirencester Street, also has a specialist facility for early onset dementia. Every resident receives very high levels of personal care and is encouraged to live as independent a life as possible.