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End of Life Care at St Anne's
- St Annes
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Polite Notice: This post contains references to end of life care.
When people are asked where they would want to be at the end of their lives, most say home rather than hospital.
For the people who live at St Anne's, home is here. Our goal is to provide a comforting home for our residents at end of life. A place where they can be cared for by people who know them, in a comfortable and safe setting, in line with their individual wishes. If you ask any member of our team how they see their role or why they do what they do, one of the phrases that will often come up is, “this is their home.”
Providing professional end of life care to a high standard, with compassion, is a complex process. It requires planning, training, flexibility, resilience and continuous learning. Most importantly, it requires a committed team who are dedicated and passionate about providing the best care they possibly can.
At St Anne's Nursing Home, we view the development of our end of life care practice as ongoing work. As part of this journey, we have been fortunate to learn from experienced professionals and organisations with a focus on providing end of life care.
Hampshire's Oldest Hospice
Mountbatten Hampshire is Hampshire's oldest hospice, and the only one supporting people in Southampton. They have cared for local families for over 45 years. They run a 21-bed inpatient unit in West End, they care for people in their own homes, and they support families through bereavement.
Over the years, Mountbatten Hampshire has been an invaluable source of support, expertise and training for St Anne's Nursing Home. Members of our care and nursing teams continue to undergo training courses at Mountbatten, and we have been able to ask for their advice and professional guidance in order to support our own practice.
Mountbatten has had a remarkable impact on care in Southampton and we feel fortunate to have this organisation, which is a registered charity, on our doorstep.
In March, Senior Registered Nurse Maridiya (Diya, to most of us) represented St Anne's at the Mountbatten Conference 2026 at St Mary's Stadium.
The theme was “Fit for the Future”: how palliative and end of life care is delivered together, and how the ambitions of the NHS ten year plan become real at a local level.
Diya came back full of it. Dr Sarah Scobie of the Nuffield Trust spoke on shifting care out of hospitals and into the community. Another session looked at reaching people who face real barriers to getting end of life support. Diya shared what she learned with our clinical team, as part of our ongoing work to develop the way we plan and deliver end of life care.
Moving care out of hospital is an important ambition for the NHS. We don't often think of our work as part of a national or government strategy, but the work that nurses and carers do at organisations such as St Anne's Nursing Home or Mountbatten Hampshire has a direct and tangible impact on the NHS's ability to achieve this goal. For our team, though, it is just a part of their day-to-day work supporting residents.
We are incredibly grateful to Mountbatten Hampshire, for their ongoing contributions to care in Southampton and for the support they have provided to us at St Anne's Nursing Home.
Two thirds of Mountbatten's funding comes from the community rather than the NHS. If you want to learn more, or to see how you can donate or support them, here is a link to their website: Mountbatten Southampton.
End of Life Care training with the Gold Standards Framework
To further develop our end of life care practice, St Anne's Nursing Home is working through the Gold Standards Framework (GSF) training. We are partway through. The final stage is external accreditation, which we will be working towards as we complete the programme.
GSF is a national training and accreditation programme in end of life care used by care homes across the country, and a registered charity. It is a structured, evidence-based approach to improving end of life care. It supports training of our team in advance care planning, in talking openly with families, and in coordinating care through a resident's final months, weeks and days.
The programme has provided us with valuable insight from professionals who have spent their lives dedicated to improving end of life care. It has also given us a rewarding opportunity to connect with professionals at other care homes to learn from them and share ideas on best practice.
We want to say thank you to the organisers of the GSF programme, to our care and nursing teams, and to all those who have contributed to providing end of life care in Southampton.
Talk to Us
If you would like to talk to us about end of life care at St Anne's Nursing Home, whether you are just planning or actively looking for a care home, please get in touch with us any time. We are happy to arrange a conversation or carry out a viewing.
Call: 023 8058 5032 | Email: info@stannesnursing.co.uk
If you are an existing resident or representative of someone at St Anne's and have questions, please ask any member of staff to arrange a conversation about end of life care, or contact the front desk.
