Bereavement care improved at Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital

A new bereavement service has been launched called The Swan Campaign which will see the running of training exercises with staff dealing with ways they can handle the emotional circumstances when a family member passes away.

As part of the service's launch, New Cross Hospital's newly refurbished mortuary has been named The Swan Suite.

The service will also help improve the personal time families need during moments of tenderness before and after a loved one has died.

This will be done in a number of ways including the handing out of 'swan boxes' which will be given out so loved ones can place sentimental personal items inside before they die such as wedding rings and lockets.

Canvas bags will also be handed to families to put patients' belongings into rather than a plastic bag.

Cheryl Etches, chief nursing officer and deputy chief executive at the Wednesfield Road hospital, said bereavement care at the hospital could be of a better standard which was one of the reasons for launching it.

"The new service focuses on personalised compassionate care for the dying patient and indeed the family," she said.

"It is to deal with those tender moments such as the person dying handing over jewellery like wedding rings, lockets or when taking their final photographs of them holding hands.

"These may appear to be really small things and not rocket science as it were but they have a massive impact for the families and the people dying.

"Every time we see the swan we know there is a patient in the end stages of their life or there are families that have been bereaved."

She added: "I think we can do better in what we offer bereaved families and have a lot to learn in terms of how paediatrics deal with bereavement."