Sustainable oral healthcare: what is it and how do we achieve it?

In recent years, there has been an increase in interest in what environmental sustainability means for healthcare, including oral health and dentistry. To help facilitate discussions among key stakeholders in this area, the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme held a workshop in November 2022. The purpose of this workshop was to explore current thinking on the subject of sustainability as it relates to oral health and to help stakeholders identify how to engage with the sustainability agenda. This paper presents an overview of the presentations and discussions from the workshop and highlights potential avenues for future work and collaboration.

Using simulation as a learning experience in clinical teams to learn about palliative and end-of-life care: A literature review.

Simulation has been shown to improve the preparedness of practitioners in acute care. In this review, the authors evaluate using simulation to prepare practitioners to deliver palliative care in multidisciplinary teams. The Joanna Briggs Institute approach was used and seventeen studies selected. The thematic analysis of the literature fitted well with Gabby, Le May, Connell, and Klein's ( 2014 ) pyramid approach to health improvement suggesting that simulation can be used in teams to learn technical, soft and learning skills of delivering palliative care. The analysis does not indicate how learning each of these skills interacts nor if simulations in teams should be repeated, or how often.

Diagnosis, prognosis and awareness of dying in nursing homes: towards the Gold Standard?

BACKGROUND: In Western society and increasingly elsewhere, death has become medicalised and 'hospitalised' even when people are enduring deteriorating terminal conditions such as dementia and heart failure. In an attempt to rationalise and dignify the place and manner of death, evidence is emerging that the adoption of end-of-life care pathways and models can improve the experience of the end-of-life care across a range of care settings. Each of these demands skills and knowledge in the assessment and prediction of the dying trajectory. AIM: In this study, we report complexities facing relatives, residents and nursing home staff in the awareness, diagnosis and prediction of the dying trajectory. METHODS: Data were collected and analysed within a broadly qualitative methodology. The contexts were two nursing homes in the Greater Manchester area, each at different stages of implementing 'Gold Standards Framework' approaches to planning end-of-life care with residents and their relatives. From 2008 to 2011 and with appropriate consent, data were collected by a mixture of interviews and participant observation with residents, relatives and staff. Appropriate ethics approvals were sought and given. RESULTS: Key emerging themes were diagnosis and awareness of dying in which there is no substitute for experience. Significant resource is needed to engage staff, residents and relatives/carers with the idea of advance care planning. CONCLUSIONS: Talking to residents and relatives about their feelings and wishes for care at the end of life remains especially difficult, but education and training in key skills and knowledge can engender confidence. Challenges include diagnosing and predicting dying trajectories. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Advance care planning can reduce the distress from and number of inappropriate hospital admissions, but requires determination and consistent application of the approach. This can be very challenging in the face of staff rotation and the unpredictability both of the dying trajectory and the decision-making of some out of hours medical staff.