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What is palliative home care from The Good Care Group?
At The Good Care Group our nurse-led, home-based palliative care services allow you or your loved one to receive support in the place you or they love most: the home.
Like our live-in care service, it sees a carer move into the home of you or your loved one to provide full-time support. We provide effective symptom management and a pillar of emotional and psychological support.
Compassion is at the forefront of all we do. It extends to the whole family.
Our carers are respectful and sensitive, providing much-needed reassurance. We work with a range of healthcare professionals to ensure a smooth and holistic process, with a care plan that evolves to provide the best outcomes.
The benefits of palliative care at home
In 2023, Marie Curie found 56% of UK respondents in its survey wanted to die at home*. But why?
- Familiarity – Home-based palliative care allows you to spend the final years, months or weeks of life surrounded by a lifetime of memories, home comforts and loved ones.
- One-to-one care – All our palliative care at home is delivered on a one-to-one basis by a dedicated carer – something you just can’t guarantee in a nursing home or hospice.
- Bespoke palliative care – We build all our support around individual needs. You and your loved ones will have total peace of mind that the care focuses on relieving the symptoms of the condition and evolves with time.
- Palliative care experts – Each of our carers receives professional training to ensure they have all the skills needed to deliver the best support for our clients – no matter the condition they’re living with.
- Family involvement – We work closely with the families of our clients, allowing them to take an active role in their loved one’s care. Our carers are here to support them too.
Government palliative and end of life care statistics found that hospitals were the most common place for someone to die (43.4%) – vs the home (28.7%)**.
Here, at The Good Care Group, we’re very proud to have enabled 87% of our palliative care clients to pass away in the comfort of their own home – with a specialist pathway that avoids admission to hospital for the last days.
Sources:
* Marie Curie, Public attitudes to death, dying and bereavement in the UK re-visited: 2023 survey, Policy briefing, October 2024 (accessed 06/01/2025)
**Office for Health Improvement & Disparities, Official Statistics: Palliative and end of life care profile December 2023 update: Statistical commentary; Updated 17 September 2024 (accessed 06/01/2025)
What’s the difference between palliative and end of life care?
People often confuse the two and we totally understand why – they cover similar aspects. However, palliative home care is very different to end of life care – one leads into the other.
| Palliative Care | End-of-Life Care | |
| Goal | Designed to support individuals affected by life-limiting illnesses to improve their quality of life and even lifespan. This can be done through symptom management, companionship and emotional support. | Designed to support individuals during the final stages of a life-limiting illness, ensuring comfort, pain management and emotional well-being before death. |
| Duration | Depending on a person’s condition, it can span months or years. | It’s typically delivered for a short period of time, lasting days or weeks. |
| When is it Delivered? | Palliative care can be delivered at any point during a life-limiting illness. | End-of-life care is delivered as a person approaches the latter stages of their life – usually their final weeks or days. |
| Family Support | We provide ongoing support for families throughout the illness, helping them to deal and process a challenging situation. | We’re here to provide emotional support, guidance and bereavement care during and after a loved one’s passing. |
| Available at Home? | Yes | Yes |
For more information, please visit our dedicated ‘End of Life Care’ page.
What does palliative care at home include?
- Management of medicine and physical symptoms – Including administering medication to manage pain and control the symptoms caused by conditions. All our carers are trained in administering medicine.
- Personal care – Our carers can support with a range of day-to-day tasks, from dressing, bathing and mobility around the home to preparing meals (around specialist diet plans), managing PEG feeding and hydration.
- Companionship – Emotional and psychological support are linchpins in the care we provide; our carers are always there to provide a listening ear and a reassuring presence to confide in – particularly with spiritual or existential concerns.
- Help around the home – We can provide as much or as little support as needed with life admin and keeping a tidy home. We empower our clients to maintain their independence, providing support whenever needed.
- Facilitating activities and social engagements – We’re determined to help our clients make the most of their time, enabling them to be active members of their communities, spend precious time with friends and family, partake in beloved hobbies and more.
A palliative home care service built with experts
No one wants to prepare for the end of life.
However, for families in this situation, the earlier you or your loved can have an open and honest conversation about your or their wishes and preferences, the sooner a care plan can be put in place.
We provide a highly personalised palliative care at home service. Every facet is built around individuals, from a trained and well-matched carer to a bespoke palliative care plan.
It’s proven to meet a person’s care needs and improve their quality of life no matter where they are in their journey. Our approach, with a fully managed and regulated service families can trust, sets standards for those who are nearing, or at the end-of-life.
Short term care or respite care
Our palliative care for those nearing the end-of-life is highly flexible and we provide our service as either 24- hour live-in care, a short term care arrangement or as respite care.
Respite care or a short-term arrangement provides an opportunity for a regular family carer to take a much-needed break from caring for someone who is nearing the end of their life. It also provides a great opportunity for individuals to experience, first hand, how live-in care works and whether it is the right choice.
Why choose The Good Care Group for palliative care at home?
We pride ourselves on providing care without compromise. We’ve delivered in-home palliative care to families across England and Scotland for over a decade.
Our award-winning service has enabled people affected by life-limiting conditions to enjoy a fulfilling life during their final weeks, months and years – around those they cherish most in the place they love most.
With The Good Care Group, you or your loved one will enjoy:
- Rated ‘Outstanding’: We’re the only dedicated live-in care provider rated ‘Outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). In Scotland, we’ve achieved top ratings for care and leadership from the Care Inspectorate (CI) too.
- Well-matched care team: Our palliative home care service pairs two specialist carers on a two-week rotation. We carefully match them to meet you or your loved one’s needs, personalities and interests.
- Expertly trained carers: They undertake a comprehensive training programme developed with leading charities and clinical experts in the field of palliative care. They’re equipped with the skills to deliver outstanding support.
- Continuity of care: We employ our carers directly. It means they stay with us for longer, which provides greater stability and more consistent high-quality care – unlike agencies that often see frequent carer turnover.
- In-house clinical experts: Our team includes nursing professionals, including a specialist admiral nurse and a registered clinical nurse who provide expert guidance on safe and effective care at home.
- Improving health outcomes: We focus on enhancing quality of life by reducing hospital admissions, UTIs, falls and carer stress, while promoting independence, well-being and excellent nutrition.
- Fully managed service: Our fully managed service relieves families of supervisory tasks, offering 24/7 support from a dedicated care manager, ensuring peace of mind.
Case study: Anne’s story – the dignity and comfort mum deserved
My mum was 97 and very frail following a series of strokes over the last 10 years. After another significant stroke, she was admitted to hospital, where she was also diagnosed with heart failure.
When the doctors told us that mum now needed palliative care, I knew straight away there was only one place she would want to receive it. In her own home, surrounded by memories, family and friends and her faithful cat Freddie.
I contacted The Good Care Group, with a view to bringing mum home for the last time.
One of their Care Managers visited us in hospital before she was discharged, to understand mum’s needs and wishes. She spent time talking to the doctors and nurses and created a holistic plan of care which would keep mum comfortable and pain free at home, living with dignity and respect in the time she had left.
The Care Manager knew the two professional carers on her team she wanted to look after mum. It came as such a relief to learn that both were experienced in delivering end-of-life care and were extremely well trained.
They cared for mum in her room, with her favourite music – Mozart – playing gently in the background. Whenever she woke, day or night, she was treated to the sound of his symphonies, which seemed to keep her calm and at peace.
The carers cooked her small portions of her favourite meals – it was agreed she would eat what she wanted, when she wanted. They used her favourite scented soap to wash her each day and spent hours just sitting, holding her hands, rubbing cream into her skin and keeping her nails trim.
Even in the last days, when it was sometimes hard to tell if she knew we were there, they did not deviate from her wishes. She passed away a few weeks later, with her cat Freddie on her lap and her favourite music playing softly.
We were all able to visit before the end came and I cannot speak highly enough of the carers who made sure mum felt safe and comfortable and allowed us to spend such precious time together.
What is included in our service?
Our highly personalised and flexible palliative care at home
service includes:
- Full consultation before care starts
- Access to clinical expertise and medical support
- Bespoke and flexible care plan developed with input from the family and other healthcare professionals
- Matching of the most suitable care team to meet the holistic needs of our clients
- Dedicated care team led by an expert regional care manager
- Meal planning and household tasks
- Social activities and lifestyle enhancement
- Specialist support and expertise - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Frequently asked questions about palliative home care
Find out more
Other conditions we care for
Talk to us about your palliative care needs
Our friendly and experienced team is here to help you and your family make sense of the options available to you. Call us today – we will help you every step of the way.