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The advisory board members to support the development of the end of life care strategy for adults were announced today. The board, appointed by the Health Minister Rosie Winterton, will provide advice on the strategy which will ensure choice, quality of care, equity of access and value for money for people across England. The board includes Chief Executives of leading charities, senior clinicians and managers from the NHS and social care. A full list of the board members is in Notes to Editors.

Also announced today were the working groups, which will make recommendations on a number of specific areas. The working groups will include: measuring the quality of care; the care pathway for someone approaching the end of life and the services required to meet their needs; care homes; analysis and stronger commissioning of services; and workforce and development.

The comprehensive strategy will deliver more choice for the vast majority of people on where they die with much better coordination between health, social services and the voluntary sector. It will enable them to respond quickly and effectively to people at the end of life

Rosie Winterton said:

"I would like to thank all those who have agreed to give their time to work on this strategy, which will define how we care for dying people for years to come. There is currently a major mismatch between people's preferences for where they should die and their actual place of death.

"Although some patients receive excellent care at the end of life, many do not. This strategy will help to deliver quality care to people across the country."

Professor Mike Richards says of the strategy;

"Over 500,000 adults die each year in England. The aim of this strategy will be to ensure that high quality care is provided at the end of life for all of these patients, irrespective of diagnosis. The strategy will cover care given in hospitals, care homes and the community. It will continue to build on previous initiatives, such as the very successful programme to train district nurses in palliative care and our current end of life programme in skilling up general health and social care staff.

Eve Richardson, an advisory board member and Chief Executive of the National Council for Palliative Care, said:

"We welcome this opportunity to develop for the first time a comprehensive strategy for care of all those in the last phase of their lives.

"This represents a considerable challenge and the NCPC as the umbrella body working across the public,voluntary and independent sectors will do all it can to support the work of the new Board to ensure that it pulls together the evidence required to ensure that end of life care becomes a real priority for all health and social care commissioners and service providers. This should help widen access and offer better care and support for many more people approaching the end of their lives."

Notes to editor:

1. Professor Mike Richards, the National Cancer Director, is working with Professor Ian Philp, the National Director for Older People, with the support of all the other national clinical directors, to prepare the strategy. The strategy will provide guidance to commissioners and to providers on how to bring about improvements in end of life care at a local level.

2. The strategy will set out in more detail the rationale for the new developments on end of life care, which were heralded in the White Paper Our health, our care, our say. These were:
- establishing end of life care networks
- investing in rapid response teams and hospice-at-home services, and - expanding our current, most successful training programmes.

2. A programme of work will then follow with a final report and recommendations to Ministers in autumn 2007. Depending on the views of Ministers the Department of Health will then publish the End of Life Care Strategy.

3. Membership of Advisory Board

Mike Richards National Cancer Director DH
(Chair)

Ian Philp National Director for DH
Older People

Thomas Chief Executive Marie Curie Cancer Hughes-Hallett Care

Peter Hollins Director General British Heart Foundation

Eve Richardson Chief Executive National Council for Palliative Care

Niall Dickson Chief Executive Kings Fund

Paul Cann Director of Policy Help the Aged

Shan Nicholas Chief Executive Princess Royal Trust for Carers

Jabeer Butt Deputy Director Race Equality Foundation

Anna Walker Chief Executive Healthcare Commission

Paul Snell Chief Inspector Commission for Social Care Inspection

Martin Green Chief Executive English Community Care Association

Baroness Finlay of Consultant in Palliative Velindre Hospital, Llandaff Medicine Cardiff

Cynthia Bower Chief Executive West Midlands Strategic Health
Authority

Helen Bellairs Chief Executive Western Cheshire Primary Care Trust

Claire Perry Chief Executive Lewisham Primary Care Trust

Claire Henry National Director NHS End of Life Care Programme

Vivienne Nathanson Director of Professional British Medical Activities Association

Mayur Lakhani Chairman of Council Royal College of General Practitioners

Janice Sigsworth Deputy Chief Nursing DH
Officer

David Behan Director General Social Care, DH

Flora Goldhill Director Experience & Involvement, DH

Richard Murray Director Financial Planning, DH

Gerard Hetherington Director Clinical Programmes, DH

Bob Ricketts Division Head Demand-side reform, DH

Martin Hensher Senior Economic Adviser Standards & Quality Analytical Team, DH

Surinder Sharma Director General Equality & Human RightsDH

For all enquiries, please contact the Department of Health on 020 7210 4850.