Skanda Vale Hospice is a volunteer-based hospice specialising in palliative care, located in Carmarthenshire, Wales. The hospice is located in the village of Saron, [1] and while independent, it is affiliated with the Skanda Vale interfaith monastery located in the nearby village of Llanpumsaint. [2]
The hospice is especially distinctive for its volunteer-based nature. The vast majority of hours worked are by volunteers, including in management and administration. [3]
Skanda Vale Hospice was set up in 1993 by members of the Skanda Vale community. [2] The community's founder, Guru Sri Subramanium had survived a heart attack a few years before, and saw an elderly man dying alone in another bed in his ward while he was in hospital. This made him resolve to found a hospice to prevent people having to die alone without any emotional support. [3]
The hospice provides respite care lasting for one week of each month, [1] as well as day-care two days a week. Both of these services are provided for terminally ill adults, in particular those living in Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion, although it accepts referrals from across the United Kingdom. Care is provided by paid and unpaid clinical staff, including volunteer nurses and doctors. [2]
Palliative care is an interdisciplinary medical caregiving approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex illness. Within the published literature, many definitions of palliative care exist; most notably, the World Health Organization describes palliative care as "an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial, and spiritual." In the past, palliative care was a disease specific approach, but today the World Health Organization takes a more broad approach, that the principles of palliative care should be applied as early as possible to any chronic and ultimately fatal illness.
The Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale is a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England. It takes its name from the dale of the River Calder, whose upper part flows through the borough. Several small valleys contain tributaries of the River Calder. The population at the 2011 Census was 203,826.
Marie Curie is a registered charitable organisation in the United Kingdom which provides care and support to people with terminal illnesses and their families. It was established in 1948, the same year as the National Health Service.
Health and Social Care (HSC) is the publicly funded healthcare system in Northern Ireland. Although having been created separately to the National Health Service it is nonetheless considered a part of the overall national health service in the United Kingdom. The Northern Ireland Executive through its Department of Health is responsible for its funding, while the Public Health Agency is the executive agency responsible for the provision of public health and social care services across Northern Ireland. It is free of charge to all citizens of Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Skanda Vale is a non-denominational spiritual centre and monastery located in Carmarthenshire, Wales, near the village of Llanpumsaint. Founded in 1973 by Guru Sri Subramanium, the monastery is inhabited and run by the Community of the Many Names of God, which also runs Somaskanda Ashram in Switzerland. Skanda Vale promotes a practical spirituality centred on devotion and selfless service.
Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust (YAS) is the NHS ambulance service covering most of Yorkshire in England. It was formed on 1 July 2006 following the mergers of the former West Yorkshire Metropolitan Ambulance Service (WYMAS), South Yorkshire Ambulance Service (SYAS) and Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service (TENYAS). It is one of ten NHS Ambulance Trusts providing England with emergency medical services as part of the National Health Service it receives direct government funding for its role.
The Sir Michael Sobell House Hospice is an Oxford-based hospice serving the residents of Oxfordshire, England affected by life-limiting illness.
Llanpumsaint is a village and community in Carmarthenshire, Wales. In the 2001 UK Census, Llanpumsaint community had a population of 595. It is not to be confused with Pumsaint, a small village some distance away on the River Cothi. The population increased in 2011 to 734, and thus the percentage of Welsh speakers declined.
Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC) is a hospital located in the Baltimore suburb of Towson, Maryland. GBMC serves more than 20,455 inpatient cases and approximately 52,000 emergency department visits annually. GBMC's main campus also includes three medical office buildings—Physicians Pavilion East, Physicians Pavilion West and Physicians Pavilion North I. In addition to its main campus located in Towson, GBMC's care can be found in several facilities located throughout the community including Hereford, Hunt Manor, Hunt Valley, Owings Mills, Perry Hall, Lutherville, Phoenix and Timonium.
Healthcare in Wales is mainly provided by the Welsh public health service, NHS Wales. NHS Wales provides healthcare to all permanent residents that is free at the point of need and paid for from general taxation. Health is a matter that is devolved, and considerable differences are now developing between the public healthcare systems in the different countries of the United Kingdom. Though the public system dominates healthcare provision, private health care and a wide variety of alternative and complementary treatments are available for those willing to pay.
Community Hospice & Palliative Care, also known simply as Community Hospice, is a not-for-profit hospice, which has served the Greater Jacksonville Metropolitan Area since its inception in 1979. The organization was the first hospice program in Northeast Florida and one of a few operating programs in the state when Florida began granting hospice licenses in 1981; Community Hospice received their license in 1983 and in 2008, assisted nearly 1,000 patients daily and more than 6,000 patients a year.
Hinduism is a minority religion in Wales.Under half of Welsh Hindus having settled there in the second half of the 20th century. There were 10,434 Hindus in Wales in the 2011 Census.
Hospice care in the United States is a type and philosophy of end-of-life care which focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's symptoms. These symptoms can be physical, emotional, spiritual or social in nature. The concept of hospice as a place to treat the incurably ill has been evolving since the 11th century. Hospice care was introduced to the United States in the 1970s in response to the work of Cicely Saunders in the United Kingdom. This part of health care has expanded as people face a variety of issues with terminal illness. In the United States, it is distinguished by extensive use of volunteers and a greater emphasis on the patient's psychological needs in coming to terms with dying.
Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life. Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life by reducing pain and suffering. Hospice care provides an alternative to therapies focused on life-prolonging measures that may be arduous, likely to cause more symptoms, or are not aligned with a person's goals.
Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS), formally known as Children's Hospice Association Scotland, is a registered charity that provides the country's only hospice services for children and young people with life-shortening conditions. The first hospice was built thanks to the late editor-in chief of the Daily Record and Sunday Mail, Endell Laird, who launched a reader appeal which raised £4million. CHAS offers children’s hospice services, free of charge, to every child, young person and their families who needs and wants them. CHAS was formed in February 1992 by a group of professionals and parents of children with life-shortening conditions who had travelled to England for hospice care. In 2018/19, CHAS supported 465 children with a life-shortening condition, and their siblings, parents and wider families. The care provided is multi-disciplinary, including from doctors, nurses, social workers, pharmacists, play specialists and others. CHAS also employs medical and nursing staff who work in hospitals alongside NHS doctors and nurses.
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Healthcare in Dorset is primarily the responsibility of Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group. Dorset County Council is leading in the development of an electronic health record, to be called the Dorset Care Record, provided by Orion Health. It is intended to enable all health and social care providers to share records.
Healthcare in Kent is now mainly the responsibility from 1st April 2020 of the Kent & Medway Clinical Commissioning Group. Certain specialised services are directly commissioned by NHS England, coordinated through the South East integrated regional team. Some NHS England structures are aligned on a Kent & Medway basis, others on a South East basis and there is liaison with London that provides many tertiary healthcare services to the residents of Kent.
Healthcare in Essex is now the responsibility of six clinical commissioning groups: Basildon and Brentwood, Mid Essex, North East Essex, Southend, Thurrock and West Essex.