Background

There is little doubt that individuals and societies around the world call for greater attention to people’s wellbeing and sense of identity, regardless of their age or how close they are to death. Retaining physical functionality and the opportunity for self-determination is central to an individual’s quality of life and vital to their experiences of dignity, comfort and self-determination. As people live longer with conditions such as frailty, additional effort is required on the part of health and social care professionals and other carers to help people identify what is most important to them and find every opportunity to enable them to achieve these goals as they come towards the end of their life.

We call this Rehabilitative Palliative Care and have been honing this approach at St Christopher’s for nearly a decade. It is not merely the opportunity of allied health professionals. Indeed, it is everyone’s business and its success depends on buy-in and enactment by families and neighbours alongside a broad range of professionals, supported also by organisational recognition and investment.