In October 2022 we were pleased to take part in Healthwatch East Sussex’s Eastbourne Listening Tour. Healthwatch, East Sussex are an independent watchdog for health and care services across the county. The Listening Tour lasted for two weeks and captured feedback and experiences of health and care services from Eastbourne residents. As part of the event, we partnered with Healthwatch to create an End of Life Care Survey which we asked the public to complete.

You can find out more about what we did in our December blog.

The full results

Healthwatch, East Sussex will be publishing the full results of their listening tour next week.

We are therefore taking this opportunity to publish the full results of our part of the survey here.

Headline findings

• Mixed views were given about end of life care received by a loved one, general health services were not working as well during and post-Covid.
• Out of hours support and coordination between agencies needs to be better.
• Care homes and primary/secondary care would benefit from more education on palliative and end of life care.
• Important to facilitate patient making end of life plans and to fully involve the family/other loved ones in this.
• Good pain management was seen as the most important aspect of good end of life care, along with communication, good information and listening to patient wishes.
• Pain management can be lacking in community care.
• After death support for families/loved ones is also important.
• Half of people would not know how to access end of life care – there is a need for more public information about death and dying.
• Hospices need to be given a greater planning role and longer-term/better funding.

What’s next?

Healthwatch, East Sussex will be publishing their report and key findings next week. We are committed to working with local partners to consider this feedback and try and improve the experiences for all at end of life.

Follow Healthwatch East Sussex on Twitter and Facebook to find out more about the results and recommendations from the listening tour.

If you have any feedback about end of life care and the support of the hospice you can contact us here