One of the 7 key standards within GSF is continued learning and education for general health and social care staff in end of life care. GSF recognises the need for inter-professional learning, focusing on real clinical problems, consistent with adult learning principles.
Best patient care will only occur when there is a combination of all three areas of head, hands and heart - the clinical expertise or ‘head’ knowledge, the organisational processes or ‘hands’ ; and the patient focus or ‘heart’.
Berwick describes quality care resulting from the three areas of knowledge, systems and patient focus. This fits with the GSF “Head, Hands and Heart” focus:
So best end of life care will not occur just by educating healthcare staff, but only by also changing systems of practice. Likewise GSF will not work well unless complemented by an increasing knowledge base, ‘learn-as-you-go’ thinking and access to specialist support. So education and continued learning is intrinsic to GSF.
In future on this website, we hope to be able to provide you with further resources to develop your knowledge and understanding in palliative care. This will soon become an interactive site, but is currently being developed.
To help you to make choices about your education, let us look at 3 main areas:
