SERIOUSLY-ILL people in York and North Yorkshire are to benefit from two schemes aimed at improving palliative care.
Palliative care covers a range of measures aimed at alleviating symptoms and improving quality of life, although it does not offer a cure.
Craven, Harrogate and Rural District Primary Care Trust (PCT) has successfully bid for £450,000 worth of investment from the New Opportunities Funds and Macmillan Cancer Relief.
The money will enable the PCT to develop a specialist palliative care team for adults to help co-ordinate care of patients in their own home or in a residential home, whether suffering from cancer or other illnesses.
It will also allow the PCT to employ a Macmillan GP Facilitator, working on a part-time basis with GPs and primary care teams, to enhance and extend their specialist palliative care skills.
Penny Jones, chief executive of the PCT, said: "We are delighted to have received this additional funding which will enable us to provide an extended and more joined up service for our patients."
In a separate scheme Selby and York PCT has launched a new Palliative Care Resource File.
The Selby and York Specialist Palliative Care Team and the York Palliative Care Pharmacy Group have compiled the innovative resource file, which provides information for all health care professionals to support the delivery of palliative care to patients in any care setting.
The file has been produced with considerable consultation with community, hospital and hospice medical and nursing staff, as well as voluntary organisations.
Dr Sue Ross, chief executive of Selby and York PCT, said: "We hope this directory and resource file will build on the significant work already being undertaken to provide high quality care for people with advanced, progressive illnesses in the Selby and York area."
The file will be distributed to health care professionals throughout the Selby and York PCT, including GPs, District Nurses and North Yorkshire Emergency Doctors, as well as to hospital medical and nursing staff.
Updated: 09:33 Friday, May 02, 2003
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