Lantern Model shines a light on good nursing practice at Hospice in the Weald

Finding the person within the patient is the focus of a nursing programme now being championed across all aspects of care at Hospice in the Weald.

A group of staff at the Hospice have recently taken part in the Lantern Model, a programme pioneered by St Christopher’s Hospice, which centres on the person behind the illness and their wishes.

The four nurses who’ve been actively involved in the Lantern Model and their colleague who runs the Hospice’s Living Well programme, say they now feel empowered to continue their good practice and are confident to adopt fresh initiatives to further enhance the experience of patients and their families.

Stephanie: “We now have a number of Lantern Model Champions across the organisation. We’ve made small Lantern Model badges for them to wear which use the St Christopher’s logo of the Lantern flower. We wear them to start a conversation – people can ask us what they are and that gives us the opportunity to talk about the programme. The badges are very basic, but they’ve helped engage the whole team in the ethos of the programme and that we are all involved in helping to recognise what’s important to patients – whether it’s the chaplain or someone in the housekeeping team. It really has had ripples throughout the whole organisation.”

“We’ve now started linking our Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) meetings to the Lantern Model too. So instead of just discussing the clinical information we extract the person from the patient, bringing equality to what might be described as the softer things. It puts the science and the art of nursing on a level.”

Ruth: “It’s helped people tackle what can be sensitive conversations with more confidence – both patients and staff. And learning what good practice is from peers can be really revelatory and even better when you can then share these new ways of doing things with your colleagues.”