Palliative care during the pandemic – a report on its impacts
“An extreme time for families and practice”
We would like to share with you an important report that has been compiled with the help of St Luke’s Senior Social Worker, Stella Murray. We are proud not just of her contribution to the findings but of all our staff and those in other end of life settings across the UK who have demonstrated extraordinary resilience in the face of overwhelming emotional and psychological burdens during the pandemic.
The report has been produced by the Association of Palliative Care Social Workers (APCSW) and was recently submitted to the All Party Parliament Group for Hospice and End of Life Care review into the impacts of Covid-19 on death, dying and bereavement in England.
At times a devastating read, the report outlines the complex nature of grief experienced during the pandemic and its profound and long-lasting impacts including multiple losses, disenfranchised grief, the restrictions on traditional mourning/death rites and the tragedy of not being present when loved ones die. We hope that this review will inform future palliative and end-of-life care strategy or policy.
