Palliative health care (from Latin palliare, to cloak) is any variety of medical support or treatment which centres on scaling down the harshness of pain, rather than trying to halt, or reverse progression of the ailment. The aim is to stop and/or relieve suffering while bettering the actual day-to-day life for people facing up to chronic disease.

However, not all end of life health care services are identical in the quality they provide, and there’s been plenty of insinuations – and verified cases – of negligence (and even abuse) taking place in hospitals that lead to people putting up with great pain and discomfort over sustained time periods. For instance an allegation is made against NHS Palliative Care in Sheffield who are charged with carelessness with a particular individual they were caring for, with details of communications with the sufferer’s daughter and the NHS.

So one must not be complacent when putting our loved ones in the charge of others – friends and family of a patient ought to be alert and ensure their family member or friend gets expert treatment.

Should your friend or family member be receiving health care under the NHS, there’s also an NHS complaints procedure you can follow should you wish to make a complaint.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 5:36 am and is filed under Health Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.