Five-day course at St Christopher’s followed by six work-based action learning sessions to be held monthly.

Further information

Liz Bryan
St Christopher’s CARE, 51-59 Lawrie Park Road, Sydenham, London SE26 6DZ
Telephone: 020 8768 4711
Email: l.bryan@stchristophers.org.uk

• Find out about the QELCA© Train the Trainers course
• View the QELCA© (Quality End of Life Care for All) Programme 2013 report

• About QELCA
• Lead tutor

Hospices and specialist palliative care units are a valuable learning resource for supporting and enabling generalists to improve patient care at end of life. The QELCA© programme is an innovation in end of life care education. It was originally designed by St Christopher’s Hospice, to empower teams of clinical nurse managers from acute, community or care home settings to lead on the delivery of high quality care to patients and families at the end of life. However, it is now being rolled out to other disciplines and settings.

QELCA© has been formally evaluated in partnership with the King’s Fund. A full evaluation report is available on request from Liz Bryan at l.bryan@stchristophers.org.uk. It has since been rolled out nationally to acute nurses in collaboration with Help the Hospices and NHS Improving Quality (formally the End of Life Care Programme). An executive summary of that evaluation report for 2012/13 is available here.

Liz Bryan

Liz is Education Senior Associate at St Christopher’s CARE. Previously she was the Director of Education and Training at St Christopher’s. Liz Bryan has a background in palliative care nursing,…

Read More Liz Bryan

Background

People are living longer with complex comorbidities resulting in significant challenges for many healthcare systems around the world. Focusing education and training on the workforce who deliver the bulk of the care at end of life is often seen as one strategy to ensure that dying is managed by professionals with skill and compassion.

QELCA stands for Quality End of Life Care for All. The QELCA© programme is an innovation in end of life care education, designed by St Christopher’s to empower teams of clinicians from any setting or discipline to lead on the delivery of high quality care to patients and families at the end of life.

Hospice and specialist palliative care professionals have valuable skills for supporting and enabling generalists to improve patient care at end of life. If your organisation would like to become a QELCA© Satellite to deliver the QELCA© Programme to other organisations, please download the QELCA© Satellite flowchart which explains the process. The process begins by identifying at least two staff members to attend the QELCA© Train the Trainer Programme.

St Christopher’s will provide you with teaching resources and support throughout the delivery of your first QELCA© Programme. Learning will be assessed by academic assignment and submission of a portfolio of evidence.

Both programmes, QELCA© and QELCA© Train the Trainers are certified by St Christopher’s CARE.

View QELCA©  Satellites Flow Chart

• Topics
• Who is it for
• Facilitator
• Further information

What will I learn?

• The rationale for the development of QELCA©
• The theory underpinning the QELCA© approach to end of life care education
• Evaluation data to date
• The role of the QELCA© Trainer and strategies to overcome obstacles to effective delivery of the programme
• The core elements of the QELCA© programme, how to deliver them and what resources to use

Successful completion of this assessed programme results in St Christopher’s CARE certification and entry on the St Christopher’s held register of QELCA© Trainers available to the public via St Christopher’s website. Please note that there are annual CPPD requirements to remain on the register.

Who is it for?

For specialist palliative care professionals from:

• Medicine
• Nursing
• Psychology
• Social work
• Counselling
• Allied health
• Education

You must have:

• A minimum of 3 years experience of working in palliative care
• Support from employing organisation to deliver the QELCA© programme
• The ability to attend all the training sessions
• The ability to deliver the QELCA© programme in the next 6 to 12 months
• The ability to successfully complete course assessments/assignments (at the equivalent of academic level 6) and practical activities.

Liz Bryan

Liz is Education Senior Associate at St Christopher’s CARE. Previously she was the Director of Education and Training at St Christopher’s. Liz Bryan has a background in palliative care nursing,…

Read More Liz Bryan

How can I find out more?

St Christopher’s exists to provide and promote skilled and compassionate end of life care of the highest quality. We aim to realise a society where all dying people and those close to them have access to the care and support they need, when and wherever they need it. We promote excellence in end of life care by delivering a range of training programmes to students from all over the world.

If you have any questions about this or any other of our courses, please contact the Professional Learning Team who will be happy to help.

Telephone 020 8768 4656
Email education@stchristophers.org.uk

• Download QELCA© Train the Trainer Programme Handbook (PDF)
• Find out further details about the QELCA© training programme
• View the QELCA© (Quality End of Life Care for All) Programme 2013 report
• View BMJ article describing the national rollout and evaluation of the QELCA© Programme funded by the NHS National End of Life Care Programme