Case study: Surgical Bereavement service

Caris Grimes, Consultant Colorectal and General Surgeon at Medway NHS Foundation Trust

Caris led the Surgical Bereavement team in introducing a bereavement service to give the families of patients who had died during or after surgery the opportunity to come back to the service that treated them and ask any questions or raise any concerns.

The aim was to provide support for families and carers, reduce psychological morbidity from abnormal grief reactions, as well as reduce complaints, inquests and litigation.

The service was piloted in surgery, from June 2017 to January 2018 and has now been rolled out.

It was set up following a complaint relating to the death of a patient, comments made by a coroner during an inquest, and after a discussion with recently bereaved relatives who felt a bereavement service would have been useful. This led the team to believe that families would be better supported through a bereavement service, and that both the complaint and the coroner’s inquest could potentially have been avoided had the service been available.

Over eight months, 18 families used this service.

Review of the feedback forms demonstrated that 44% of the people reported that had they not used the service they would have submitted a complaint to the hospital to obtain the answers they needed and raise the concerns they had. Seventy-eight per cent stated that, having used the service, they had obtained closure, obtained answers to the questions they needed or had felt their concerns listened to after using the service.