Palliative care is holistic support for people with advanced or life limiting illnesses, focusing on comfort, dignity, and quality of life. It addresses people’s physical, emotional, psychological, social, spiritual, and cultural needs while also supporting families and carers. Palliative care can occur alongside active treatment. End-of-life care is a key part of palliative care and is for the final phase of life, usually when curative treatments have stopped, aiming to help individuals live as comfortably as possible and die with dignity.
People experiencing homelessness often face significant poor health, high rates of chronic and life-limiting conditions, and limited access to consistent healthcare. They often die young, frequently without access to palliative care support – partly due to a lack of recognition of the need for palliative care.
Understanding of what palliative care can offer and consideration of palliative and end-of-life care needs should be integrated into support for people experiencing homelessness. This can help with advocating for additional support from a range of services to ensure individuals receive appropriate equitable care.
In this episode of the Going Beyond podcast, we speak to Dr Caroline Shulman, Senior Clinical Fellow (Homelessness and Palliative Care) at Pathway and Charlotte Wake, Project Manager at The Harm Reduction Service, part of The Whitechapel Centre. We speak about why palliative care is relevant for the homelessness sector, how homelessness services could work more closely with palliative care services, and how staff should be supported when they experience a death of someone accessing a service.
For more resources and a Homelessness Palliative Care Toolkit, visit here.
Listen to the episode below, or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And make sure you check out the full back catalogue of Going Beyond podcasts.
