PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Palliative Care (16 October 2024)

We want a society where every person receives high-quality, compassionate care from diagnosis through to end of life. Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications, which are respectively available at the following two links:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/palliative-and-end-of-life-care-statutory-guidance-for-integrated-care-boards-icbs/

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/service-specifications-for-palliative-and-end-of-life-care-children-and-young-people-cyp/

There is data available from National Health Service bodies to support local quality monitoring, most notably local palliative and end-of-life care profiles, through the data service Fingertips, and other guidance, analyses, and bulletins issued by the National End of Life Care Intelligence Network of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, within the Department. Further information on local palliative and end-of-life care profiles through the Fingertips data service is available at the following link:

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/end-of-life#page/4/gid/1938133060/pat/159/par/K02000001/ati/15/are/E92000001/iid/92489/age/162/sex/4/cat/-1/ctp/-1/yrr/1/cid/4/tbm/1/page-options/car-ao-1_car-do-0_tre-do-1

Additionally, the Care Quality Commission publishes ratings for the quality of end-of-life care in hospitals and hospices, and has carried out national reviews. Where people die in acute, community, or mental health hospitals, the National Audit of Care at the End of Life monitors standards related to the quality of the end-of-life care provided.

Furthermore, NHS England has developed a palliative and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative and end of life care needs of their local population, enabling ICBs to put plans in place to address and track the improvement of health inequalities and ensure that funding is distributed fairly, based on prevalence. Access to the platform is available to anyone with an NHS.net email account.

I recently met with NHS England and discussions have begun on how to reduce inequalities and variation in access to, and the quality of, palliative and end of life care.  We will consider next steps on palliative and end of life care in the coming months.