Diana Children's Nurse Service evaluation (2015-2017)

“The baby had a superhero team. I had my midwife team and he [the father] felt that the DCN was his team.” (interview with mother, DCN Evaluation)

Evaluation of the Diana Children's Nurse Service 

Since 2014, three Diana’s Children’s Nurses (DCNs) have been employed by Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS) to build capacity in palliative care services for children.

Between 2015 and 2017 Children in Scotland was commissioned by CHAS to undertake an evaluation of the DCN service.

Through the evaluation we spoke to the team, CHAS staff, nurses, consultants, social workers, policy makers and families. We analysed monitoring data, and produced case studies to describe how the DCNs work.

Our findings revealed that the DCNs provided important emotional and practical support to families at a very difficult time in their lives, built the knowledge and experience of the wider workforce to respond to children’s palliative care needs, and influenced national policy.

We recommended increasing DCN capacity to extend the reach of their work and improve palliative care support for children and families across Scotland.