Report on bereavement support needs, Bury
Download (PDF 599.37 KB)Summary of report content
The study was carried out by Oxfordshire Cruse Bereavement Care funded by Healthwatch Oxfordshire in early 2016 and considered bereavement services for people 18+ living in the Banbury area experiencing loss though death of a significant person to them. CRUSE has been providing a bereavement support service in Oxfordshire since the 1960s.
The aims of the study were:
• To establish what bereavement services are currently being delivered and should be delivered, in the Banbury area.
• To gather the views from the providers of services and people who have been bereaved on the impact of the current services in the Banbury area, find out where there are gaps and establish views on the best solutions to filling those gaps.
Methodology
Set up a Project Management Group as a sub-group of CRUSE Management Committee chaired by CRUSE Chair and responsible for governance of project including financial expenditure.
The needs study was comprised of three activities:
• Desk top information search to map current services and establish number of adults accessing services between 2013 and 2016.
• 4 Focus Groups held 2 for professionals and 2 for bereaved people examining perceptions in service gaps / overlaps and seek recommendations for the needs of bereaved people in the future. Views from 12 professionals and 11 bereaved individuals.
• Personal experiences from 4 individuals
Themes that emerged:
• Information on services for bereaved people
• Access to services
• Capacity to respond to need
Conclusions:
• Inadequate Level 1 (sign posting) services
• Inadequate Level 2 (one to one support and facilitated groups) services.
Recommendations
• A Single Point of Access
• Better coordination of professionals, volunteers and support workers
• On-going training on bereavement awareness and up to date information on services
• Increase the provision of one-to-one counselling
• More facilitated and social groups
• Services need to outreach to the BAME communities.
Conclusions
3 main themes that emerged from the consultations:
• Information about bereavement support services:
• Access to services
• Capacity to respond to need.