THE BEREAVEMENT PATHWAYS PROJECT

Timeline for a bereavement pathway, also viewable as a high quality pdf
We are interested to hear from anyone carrying out an assessment of their bereavement services. All information will be welcome, to add to the knowledge base that will inform our pathways project,
Contact Jill Sanders

ABOUT THE BEREAVEMENT PATHWAYS PROJECT
Recognising a need
The Bereavement Pathways Project started – as many initiatives do – with a meeting of interested people who recognised a need at grass roots level.  Tony Brookes, Chair of the Bereavement Services Association, and Catherine Betley, Service & Development Manager at Cruse Bereavement Care, agreed that when someone dies, a clearer pathway from NHS based bereavement services into support services in the community would greatly benefit bereaved people.  An application to the Department of Health for funding for a three year project to help achieve this outcome was successful, and to date a steering group has been formed, a project officer has started work and the Bereavement Pathways Project is underway.

Objectives
One objective of the project is to establish a key partnership between the NHS and the voluntary sector by linking hospital-based services, particularly those in acute trusts, with those based in the community which provide a range of services, including longer term support for bereaved people. Another is to increase access to services for bereaved people whoever they are, however and wherever a death occurred. 

The key Department of Health advice document “When a Patient Dies”, has contributed significantly to the development of bereavement services within the NHS by highlighting areas of good practice, and it is anticipated that the development of an effective bereavement pathway will illustrate additional good practice within the voluntary sector. This may lead to additional recommendations to support closer and more effective working across all sectors; thereby providing both an overview of the current awareness of guidance in the NHS and community bereavement services, providing an evaluation of the impact and implementation of those guidelines across all sectors, and enabling further demonstration of good practice to be highlighted, and possibly incorporated, in any future DH advice.

Good practice and participation
Throughout the life of the project and beyond we will be collecting examples of good practice with a view to sharing this within the bereavement sector generally through articles and events. To this end there were two one-day stakeholder events in Birmingham and London in spring 2008 and there will be several pilots in areas of England to identify good, and also not so good, practice and test proposals, improvements and innovations. Jill Sanders, who is the project officer, would very much like to hear from everyone interested in the project.
Please contact Jill Sanders or call 020 8939 9534.

Hearing from the voluntary and community sector
There is a survey questionnaire for community organisations involved in bereavement care and support. We welcome these throughout the lifetime of the project, so if you haven't completed one and would like to, the community consultation paper is available here.

See also:
background to the Bereavement Pathways Project