EXPERTS in end-of-life care are providing specialist support to care home staff as the high coronavirus death rate takes a mental toll.

One third of all Covid-19 deaths in Scotland have been in care homes, with almost half of such facilities reporting a suspected case to the Care Inspectorate.

Across the country, as many as 2690 suspected cases have been reported.

In yesterday’s Sunday National, Donald Macaskill, the head of care sector body Scottish Care, told how some elderly residents are now showing “more acute and worrying” levels of distress, emotional and psychological harm as a result of lockdown isolation.

Experts say the situation is also having a profound impact on care home employees, who are dealing with frequent losses of life and often are grieving while trying to deliver support to other residents and manage the impact of the lockdown for their own families.

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Now palliative care specialists from Edinburgh University are offering extra back-up for this workforce through online “reflective debriefing” sessions.

The service is based on face-to-face debriefings launched by the researchers a decade ago.

It has been trialled at a nursing home in the capital and will now be offered to other sites to help staff their feel more supported and help them improve end-of-life care during the pandemic.

The sessions “build staff confidence in speaking about death and dying, and enhance the way in which they interact with dying residents”, it is claimed.

While many residential care homes provide staff training on end-of-life care education, there is no statutory requirement to do so.

The specialists behind the new initiative hope it will enable participants to improve their clinical practice and to assess their own response and wellbeing. Participants are encouraged to revisit their memories of residents who have recently died, share their feelings about how events unfolded and reflect on whether anything could have been done differently.

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Dr Julie Watson, of the university’s Department of Nursing Studies, said: “The pressure on care created by Covid-19 is placing huge emotional pressures on the care home workforce. Staff are having to deal with the stress not just on an eight or 12-hour shift, but when they go home as well.”

And Dr Jo Hockley, of the university’s Usher Institute, commented: “It’s important to recognise the fantastic work that care home staff do in palliative and end-of-life care.

“We hope these sessions will support staff as they respond to the many challenges they are encountering during the pandemic.”

Yesterday, Fiona McQueen, Scotland’s chief nursing officer, said she was “incredibly grateful” to those caring for older people – something she said had to be done “sustainably”.

Speaking at the Scottish Government’s daily press conference, McQueen said: “The safety and wellbeing of our older people has never been more important.”