ENCOMPASS Project
The ENCOMPASS project, funded by the Big Lottery Fund, is a collaboration between five of the leading palliative care providers in South Africa and Uganda, King’s College London and Cicely Saunders International. The project has developed and validated a tool to measure palliative care quality in Africa (the APCA African Palliative care Outcome Scale). The devastating impact of the AIDS pandemic has led to a chronic need for high-quality palliative care services, and measuring quality of care is key to meeting this need. The measure covers patients’ physical, psychosocial and spiritual well being, as well as family carers’ needs.
From January 2007 to January 2008 the APCA African POS is being used to conduct a full clinical audit cycle at each of the five participating services, the first time that a palliative care audit of this kind has been conducted in Africa. Since the beginning of the project in February 2006 a significant amount of interest has been generated in the APCA African POS within Africa and internationally. PEPFAR (the US Government HIV programme) is now using the POS for service evaluation, with other funders also expressing interest in utilising it as the standard tool for funding. Cicely Saunders International will promote the measurement tool in the UK, and palliative care advocacy bodies in Africa are planning roll-out across the continent.
Meeting in Durban June 2007
Keletso Mmoledi, Thandi Mashao, Dr Lydia Mpanga-Sebuyira
Godfrey Agupio, Dianne Gording, Barbara Panajatovic
Godfrey Agupio and Dr Justin Avery
At the bi-annual African Palliative Care Association conference held in Kenya in September 2007, a whole afternoon was devoted to the ENCOMPASS project’s work developing and validating the APCA African Palliative Care Outcome Scale. Significant interest in the project was generated with countries as diverse as Nigeria and Tanzania requesting to use it to improve quality of palliative care.