History
In the 18th century, in the very first teaching hospital in the Caeciliagasthuis in Leiden professors, such as the famous Herman Boerhaave, gave bedside lectures. Several times, patients and professors moved to larger and better-furnished premises, and in 1873 the first university hospital to be built as such opened its doors. The new hospital on the Rijnsburgerweg, built in the early 1920s on the basis of the pavilion system, made way in the 1980s and 1990s for the present modern hospital.
The many years of collaboration between the university and the teaching hospital acquired greater permanence in 1996 when the hospital and medical faculty merged to form Leiden University Medical Center, with patient care, research, patient instruction, study programme, and continuing education as its five core tasks.
Profile
In November 2011, within the now LUMC, the Palliative Care Consultation Team (PCCT) started as part of the new academic Centre of Expertise in Palliative Care (CEPC). The CEPC focuses on continuous education of health care professionals, on consultation and support of patients, their carers, and their treating physicians and on conducting scientific research in palliative care. As of June 2020, Prof. Dr. Yvette van der Linden holds a chair in Palliative Medicine.
The Expert Centre is situated within the department of Radiation Oncology and Medical Oncology, but has its working field within the LUMC as a whole, including consultation on other wards with medical specialties taking care of patients with non-cancer incurable diseases, such as pulmonary, cardiac or neurological diseases. The PCCT houses a core of five dedicated nurse practitioners, and several specialist physicians including two GPs, an elderly care physician, a psychiatrist, a medical oncologist, a radiation oncologist, a pain-specialist/anesthesiologist, psychologists, and specialist spiritual care workers.
Specialties
The Centre of Expertise in Palliative Care (CEPC) strongly advocates pro-active palliative care planning, with a strong trans mural focus in order to improve integrated total care for patients with incurable diseases.
Palliative and Supportive Care
The members of the PCCT visit the patients at the different wards, the outpatient clinic and at home. For a time-out, when patients or carers are in palliative crises, or, for end-of-life care, when death is expected within up to three months, the team has strong ties with the adjacent hospice within the city of Leiden.
There is a close collaboration within Consortium Propallia - the Palliative Network in the area, including general practitioners and other first and second line palliative health care professionals. The CEPC collaborates with the other six CEPCs in the Netherlands, the national organisation of Palliative Care Netherlands and several professional associations.
Last update: November 2022
