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P-164 Poverty proofing© in a hospice setting

bmjspcare · 2025-11-21 · canonical JSON source

3 visible annotations · policy: published · automated confidence ≥ 75.00%

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Background Poverty Proofing © is a nationally recognised tool, designed to educate and enable health care professionals to identify, acknowledge, and reduce the impact of poverty. It promotes equality of access to healthcare, services and technologies that contribute to overall health outcomes experienced by those living in poverty. Our organisation is passionate about end-of-life care for people experiencing poverty. Previous research undertaken by our organisation (Marie Curie. The cost of dying crisis. 2024; Marie Curie. Dying in poverty: exploring poverty at the end of life in the UK. 2024) has highlighted that many people die in poverty and this intervention aims to reduce the impact of poverty on our service users. The hospice in Bradford is in the fifth most income-deprived local authority area in England (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. English indices of deprivation 2019. Gov.UK 2019 [internet]).Aim Our organisation commissioned a charity to undertake Poverty Proofing © at the hospice in Bradford (2024) to better understand the experience of families/individuals who are living in poverty and to adapt services to be more inclusive, the first undertaken by the charity within a hospice setting.Methods The process:Staff training and consultations (>100 staff trained).Scoping (reviewing key areas, information-gathering).Patient and community consultations (43 patients/families; 17 community members).Feedback session.Review at 12 months after completion (2025).Results The data was structured into seven categories, each encompassing several subcategories that describe the barriers to accessing adequate end of life provision, including communication, navigating appointments and travel to the hospice.Conclusion A comprehensive report was produced, containing context and recommendations to address barriers identified through these consultations. In addition, a workforce guide (Marie Curie. Addressing poverty at the end of life: a guide for hospice and end of life care staff. Marie Curie; 2024) was produced informed by the key findings at Bradford, which outlines practical steps that can be taken by staff across any hospice and palliative care setting to identify and alleviate barriers within their own practice. Later in the year the charity will return to our hospice and complete a 12-month review to assess the impact.