Aging & Social Change: Fourteenth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions to hospice visiting and limitations in bereavement support increased psychosocial distress for patients and families. Hospice care delivery was scaled back, leading to gaps in continuity of care and failure to provide relief from the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs of cancer patients and caregivers at a time when they most required it. However, there were also extraordinary adaptive healthcare responses to these unprecedented challenges, and hospice/palliative care was no exception. There is a critical need to harness the lessons learned, evaluate policy, and practice changes to benefit cancer patients, their families, and service providers. A Transdisciplinary Action Research (TDAR) approach is utilized. Phase One involves a telephone survey with key stakeholders across the sector, including hospice leaders, partnering community groups, non-governmental organizations, community care providers, and representatives from the NZ Ministry of Health. Phase Two consists of two Think Aloud sessions (2-3 hours) with 6-8 stakeholders (each session). Participants from Phase One engage with the results and themes developed from Phase One to co-produce appropriate recommendations to increase the accessibility of services for patients with palliative care needs and their caregivers both locally and potentially across the country. This study provides data to inform changes in practice and organizational policy with the potential to increase the accessibility of palliative care services within New Zealand, which will also have relevance to other hospices across the world. This paper covers Phase One results.