On the 17th and 18th of July, a workshop was held to look at the integration of children’s palliative care through professional colleges in Ghana. Two of the recommendations from the needs assessment and situational analysis for children’s palliative care (CPC) in Ghana included:
- Review the undergraduate/ postgraduate/ specialist training for health and social care professionals to ensure that palliative care/ children’s palliative care is included.
- Work in conjunction with the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives to provide in-country specialist training on children’s palliative care.
Thus, the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons (GCPS), the Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives (GCNM) and the Ghana College of Pharmacists (GCP) were invited to a workshop held at the Aqua Safari Resort, Ada to look at how children’s palliative care can be integrated into existing courses, and what, if any, new courses could be provided by the colleges in order to train specialists for children’s palliative care in order to increase the number of specialists in Ghana, provide ongoing sustainability for children’s palliative care and ensure that children needing palliative care in Ghana can access it.
29 participants attended the workshop from the three colleges. Ayire Adongo from World Child Cancer (WCC), the co-leads of the project opened the workshop by discussing the capacity building project, the importance of integration of children’s palliative care into the work of the colleges, and how we can collaborate together to achieve this. Adwoa Pinamang Desu, Country Director for WCC Ghana then discussed the work of WCC in Ghana, and Prof Julia Downing discussed the work of the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN) and ICPCN’s role in the capacity building project in Ghana. This was followed by presentations from each of the colleges with regards to what courses they already have on palliative care or children’s palliative care, courses where they feel CPC could be integrated and then possible structures for ongoing training on children’s palliative care.
Having heard from the colleges, Prof Julia briefly discussed the global situation regarding children’s palliative care and the results of the needs assessment and situational analysis in Ghana, in order to set the scene, and why we need to be looking at children’s palliative care education. As one of the core components of the WHO Conceptual model for palliative care development, education is essential for children’s palliative care development and should be provided at different levels including the palliative care approach, general (intermediate), and specialist palliative care (WHA resolution 2014). She shared the results of a review of education programmes on CPC where they had reviewed 114 from around the world, looking at the availability of courses but also the content, identifying core content at the different levels of education. She then discussed the ‘Palliative Care Curriculum’ Toolkit, domains of care, strategies for integration and the Palliative Education Assessment Tool (PEAT). She then shared a range of resources including standards, handbooks, and competency frameworks from across the region as well as some international resources. She also shared a document drawing all of these different frameworks together, identifying domains and core competencies at the specialist and intermediate levels, along with the PEAT framework. During the rest of the workshop the colleges worked in their groups to identify their priorities for children’s palliative care training, how they would integrate it into the work of the colleges and a timeline for doing so. The discussions are still being refined, but we hope to be able to develop an action plan for integrating children’s palliative care into the work of the colleges in order to reach more children needing palliative care and their families. Initial areas for development include:
- Continuing education – regular updates, webinars etc
- Developing modules on children’s palliative care that can be included in other programmes e.g. family medicine, paediatric oncology, paediatrics, palliative care etc.
- Developing membership/ fellowship programmes on children’s palliative care
One of the priority areas for each of the colleges is the training of facilitators to support the integration of children’s palliative care into their programme. There was discussion with regards to how this could be done, with a proposal being made that a multi-professional training be held to develop facilitators. Work is ongoing, not all of the suggestions will be possible through this project, but we hope to be able to continue the work beyond the life of this project.
It was great to see the enthusiasm for children’s palliative care in the different Colleges – and the commitment to develop training and therefore health professionals, on children’s palliative care. Ayire Adongo, the Regional Manager from WCC said:
“The THET Global Health Workforce programme has strengthened collaboration with ICPCN and key stakeholders in Ghana, including the Ghana Health Service, the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives, the Ghana College of Pharmacists, and other UK stakeholders. This aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 17, which aims to enhance the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development. This initiative is contributing to sustainable solutions for addressing child cancer inequities in Africa by helping in the development highly skilled, competent, and highly motivated workforce. The recommendation from this workshop is the beginning of the development of sub-specialities in children’s palliative care through the well-established colleges we proudly are associated with.”
The “Building Capacity in children’s palliative in Ghana” programme is funded through the Global Health Workforce Programme, which is funded by the UK Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for the benefit of the UK and partner country health sectors.