Evaluation of the East of England End of Life ABC Train the Trainer Education Model in th East of England

Care home residents have multiple health needs that are often complicated by the presence of dementia. This means that they rely on a range of health and social care staff as well as family members to provide care and make decisions on their behalf. End of Life (EoL) care training aims to ensure that older people can receive care that is appropriate within the care home. This project evaluated an educational EoL care intervention in 17 care homes that used a blended learning approach (clinical facilitators, online teaching and small group work) to cascade knowledge and skills in EoL care end of life care to care home staff.

Findings: Training outcomes demonstrated improved working relationships, conceptualised as a reduction of relational uncertainty between care home staff, residents, family and clinical professionals when discussing a person’s wishes and preferences. The EoL care training programme was also perceived to have reduced pathway uncertainty, which refers to the ability of an EoL care intervention to recognise different dying trajectories and support decision making on treatment and symptom management. However, the programme had less impact on reducing service uncertainty, which refers to an intervention’s ability to coordinate and manage the input of health and social care services.
Recommendations are that care homes without nursing support on-site should be targeted for training ahead of care homes with on-site nursing.