What's Going On?

ReSPECT stands for Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment. The ReSPECT process creates a summary of personalised recommendations for a person’s clinical care in a future emergency in which they do not have capacity to make or express choices. Such emergencies may include death or cardiac arrest, but are not limited to those events. The process is intended to respect both patient preferences and clinical judgement. The most important part of ReSPECT is the conversation between the person and their health care professional (often a GP, Community Nurse or Hospice professional). This conversation is then recorded on the ReSPECT form which is kept at the person’s home and should be used if emergency services need to be called to ensure that the person’s wishes are indeed respected. Organisations providing care and support services should be aware of ReSPECT and how to support people using our services to know about it, how to ask for the conversation with a healthcare professional and how to have their wishes recorded. This introductory session will cover:

• Awareness and understanding of the ReSPECT process and documentation
• Knowledge of how to apply this is in the workplace
• Understanding of your role and how it contributes and complements the ReSPECT Process