Update from the Clinical Stakeholder Focus Group

The clinical stakeholder focus group proved to be an amazing and thought provoking evening. The group included a consultant physician, a hospice GP, two veterinary surgeons and two veterinary nurses and a (human) palliative care nurse and physiotherapist. The group were well fed with a great evening meal and were really keen to talk about end of life care as a cross-professional group.

We talked for over two hours and participants felt able to be open and honest about their own experiences and to challenge and question one another. There was great appetite for such conversation, as one attendee put it; 

“Is there not a lack of conversation around death and dying? When’s the last time you sat down with a load of medics or nursing professionals and had a proper banter about where we should go? Not me.”

It was humbling to think that by bringing this group together we had created a new space for end of life conversation, including challenging personal and professional experiences, and critical questions such as euthanasia. The conversation was formally recorded and has now been transcribed and is being analysed ready for presentation at BSA MedSoc in September!!