Banbury and Oxfordshire hospice worker wins award for palliative care equality work

Nicole Satullo is a member of the OUH Palliative Care team at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (OUH) and her award was presented at the recent Palliative Care Awards.

Katharine House Hospice and Sobell House hospice at OUH were given the award for Diversity and Inclusion for Ms Satullo’s contributions to promoting diversity and inclusivity among staff and patients and their families in palliative care.

The Diversity and Inclusion Award celebrates initiatives that have successfully pushed boundaries, addressed obstacles and are working to ensure equitable access to care with cultural sensitivity, and additionally create an environment that respects and values individual differences.

Over the past year, Ms Satullo has worked with frontline teams to address the challenge of capturing full ethnicity data from palliative care patients, which has allowed the team to identify areas where needs are not fully met and to tailor their care for individual patients and their families.

She has also led efforts to capture the perspectives of individuals who may be homeless, or for patients with learning disabilities. Following these investigations, she has helped the Palliative Care team provide the necessary support for these patients so it meets their needs.

Ms Satullo worked with the wider Palliative Care team, as well as members of the team who work on the RIPEL programme – an initiative to allow patients, if they choose, to die at home, rather than in hospital. RIPEL (Rapid Intervention for Palliative and End of Life) is a partnership between OUH, Sobell House Hospice Charity, Macmillan Cancer Support and Social Finance.

Kerri Packwood, RIPEL Programme Manager at OUH, said: “Nicole’s work goes beyond data capture – her expertise and sensitivity in terms of patient experience have allowed us all to improve the care we provide to our patients.

“We are always looking to learn and improve and her work has enabled us to diversify and expand our care – ultimately ensuring our patients have the most personalised and appropriate care possible. The RIPEL project has a huge focus on patient agency and choice and Nicole’s work very much feeds into this.”

Further to her work in EDI, Ms Satullo has been important in facilitating the recently-launched Patient Participation, Inclusion and Experience (PPIE) group for palliative and end of life care.

This group seeks patients, carers and members of the public to feed into the design and delivery of the Palliative Care team’s work, ultimately to ensure it is meeting the needs of the populations they serve.

Ms Satullo said: “At the end of someone’s life we have one chance to get it right. Everyone in our catchment who needs palliative care should be able to access it regardless of who they are, where they live or the circumstances of their life. But too often, there are barriers that prevent people from accessing that care. I am thrilled to be honoured with this award and thank the entire palliative medicine team as we continue to work together on improving equity.”

Ms Satullo’s role was previously jointly funded by Katharine House Hospice with a grant from the Masonic Charitable Foundation and Sobell House Hospice and is now fully funded by Sobell House Hospice Charity.