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Playing our part... Liz Cornish, Head of Care at Douglas House


Liz is responsible for developing the way we are currently delivering care to young people at Douglas House. Before joining us, Liz’s previous experience included working as a qualified nurse for the Churchill Hospital in Oxford and for Marie Curie. She also holds a degree in palliative care. In March 2010, Liz’s achievements were recognised by the International Journal of Palliative Nursing with an award for promoting excellence in the delivery of non-cancer related palliative care.


Q: Douglas House has now been open for 6 years. How has the service we offer changed?


LC: I think in the early days local health professionals appeared to have the idea that all Douglas House was doing was offering respite care to people with learning disabilities. That continues to be a hugely important part of what we do, but in addition now we are able offer a lot of other things as well. We can also look after more young adults with a terminal diagnosis of cancer, as well as those with a degenerative condition.


We have worked hard to diversify the skills of the care team within the last couple of years, so that we can take people with quite acute health needs. We can appropriately offer care to a much wider range of people, with a much wider range of conditions. And actually there are very few other places that will offer that care.


Q: What would happen to those young people, if they didn’t come here? What options have they got?


LC: Often, very few options. If they are quite acutely unwell, the options would be either that they go home and have a very intensive care package put in at home, or they end up staying in the acute hospital. Now, clearly most young people would rather be at home when they are not well. But depending on the circumstances it might not always be possible. They may have very poorly controlled symptoms, so their quality of life is not good and the stress on the family members caring for them can be unbearable, because they feel they are failing their son or daughter, husband or wife. So, where else would they go? If they were not able to come to Douglas House then very often the only other option will be a local nursing home.


Liz Cornish


‘Right from the word go we looked at recruiting nurses and carers with a really wide skill set and we have very


much carried that on.’ Liz Cornish


’We can appropriately offer care to a much wider range of people, with a much wider range of conditions.’


Helen & Douglas House Playing our part Annual Review 2009/2010


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