Quality End of Life Care for All (QELCA©)

The QELCA© programme is an innovation in end of life care education. Utilising transformational learning theory, it has been designed by St Christopher’s CARE to enable and empower teams of health and social care practitioners from any care setting to ensure a high-quality experience for people and families at the end of life.

There is evidence that QELCA© also motivates participants to introduce care for ‘self’ and their teams back into their organisations and to lead on change in culture. It integrates a work-based learning experience with facilitated classroom reflection and is delivered by specialist practitioners who have undertaken the QELCA© ‘Train the Trainers‘ programme.

The QELCA© Programme

The QELCA© Programme was initially formally evaluated in partnership with the King’s Fund (available on request from Liz Bryan – l.bryan@stchristophers.org.uk) but has since been rolled out nationally in collaboration with Hospice UK and NHS Improving Quality (formally the End of Life Care Programme) and to groups of trainers in many parts of the world including, China, South Korea, Singapore, Brazil, Argentina, Taiwan and Australia.

QELCA© is the intellectual property of St Christopher’s CARE and anyone claiming to deliver the programme must be registered as a QELCA© Trainer. The register comprises trainers who have attended the ‘Train the Trainers’ run by St Christopher’s CARE and who have successfully completed the St Christopher’s CARE assessed qualification.

If you are an organisation wishing to improve care delivered to people in the last phase of life and are interested in exploring whether the QELCA© Programme would support the changes needed, please contact Liz Bryan – l.bryan@stchristophers.org.uk who will be happy to discuss your specific situation with you.

QELCA© Satellites

If you are a hospice or specialist palliative care team wishing to become a St Christopher’s CARE Satellite in order to be eligible to deliver the QELCA© Programme, please see information and speak to us if you have any questions.

UK QELCA© Satellites

International QELCA© Satellites

References

Gillett, K. and Bryan, L., 2016. “‘Quality End of Life Care for All’ (QELCA): the national rollout of an end-of-life workforce development initiative”. BMJ supportive & palliative care, 6(2), pp.225-230.

Karen Gillett, Liz Reed, Liz Bryan, (2017) “Using action learning sets to support change in end-of-life care”. Leadership in Health Services, Vol. 30 Issue: 2, pp.184-193