PREFACE

This book offers a problem-orientated approach to the physical and psycho-social aspects of advanced disease. It is intended for all who support adult patients (and their families) facing advanced illness in an in-patient hospice, a hospital, a nursing home, or at home.

This book attempts to convey straight-forward principles of care which can be applied in any setting, and which can make so much difference to patients and their families. While this book is mainly for doctors and nurses, other professionals and volunteers – especially those who work in hospice and palliative care teams – will find it useful.

The principles of good hospice care now seem like common sense, yet it has taken over twenty years for details of this team-based approach to evolve. Most of us now working in hospice and palliative care do not consider it to be a specialist subject, because the problems we encounter are so universal to all areas of health care.

The aim of this book is to be as useful and accurate as possible. If you have any comments, criticisms or suggestions I would be very grateful to receive them via the publishers, Hospice Education Institute.

Cynthia Spencer House                     Peter Kaye
Northampton, England
June, 1989

The author and publisher have taken precautions to ensure that the information in this book is error-free. However, readers must be guided by their own personal and professional standards of good practice in evaluating and applying recommendations made herein. The contents of this book represent the views and experience of the author, and not necessarily those of the publisher.