DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
News Release issued by The Government News Network on 16 July 2008
More people to be
allowed the choice to die at home
Health Secretary Alan Johnson today launched the End of Life Care
Strategy, backed with £286million to provide high quality care for
all adults approaching the end of their life. It will help more
people to die in the setting they choose, mainly at home
surrounded by loved ones.
This will mean that by 2011 the government will have met the 2005
manifesto commitment to double the investment in palliative care.
It will mean better quality care for patients by making it easier
for individuals to bring about their own preferences around end of
life care; promoting dignity and respect, properly co-ordinating
services and supporting carers.
The new ten year strategy, the first of its kind, builds on the
progress made in developing end of life care services since 2000.
Areas it will particularly focus on include:
* Improved community services - asking PCTs, working with Local
Authorities, to ensure that rapid response community nursing
services are available in all areas 24/7. This will enable more
people to be cared for and die at home if they wish
* Workforce training and development - to train health and
social care professionals in assessing the needs of patients and
carers and providing the best possible quality care
* Development of specialist palliative care outreach services -
we will encourage PCTs and hospices to work together to develop
specialist services in the community, which will support all
adults regardless of their condition.
* Setting up a national End of Life Research initiative - to
further understand how best to care for those at the end of their lives.
* Quality Standards - we will work with SHA Next Stage Review End
of Life Care leads to develop quality standards against which PCTs
and providers can assess themselves and be assessed by regulators.
Lord Darzi's Next Stage Review focused on End of Life Care
as one of its key pathways, and this strategy follows on from the
Review, helping to make that commitment a reality.
Launching the strategy today, Health Secretary Alan Johnson said:
"People coming to the end of their lives and their loved
ones deserve high quality, compassionate and dignified care, on
their own terms. This strategy will help make that happen.
"We have already made £40m available to hospices to improve
environments and provide greater dignity for patients, and we
recently invested £4.5m to help build a Marie Curie state of the
art hospice in the West Midlands.
"Now this increased funding will continue momentum for
improvement and help make sure that everyone gets access to high
quality palliative care and has choice about where that care takes place."
Supporting the new Strategy, Hugh Grant, Marie Curie's
Ambassador, said:
"Since 2004 Marie Curie Cancer Care has campaigned hard for
the public to have the choice to die at home. I am delighted to
see that the Government is now honouring its 2005 Manifesto pledge
to double investment in end of life care."
Ends
Notes to Editors:
1. For a copy of the report see: http://www.dh.gov.uk
2. In its manifesto in 2005, the government committed to double
the investment in palliative care. Given the lack of data on the
cost of end of life care services, a decision was taken to
interpret the manifesto commitment to mean doubling funding for
specialist palliative care services.
3. It is estimated that when the manifesto commitment was made in
2005, expenditure on specialist palliative care services by the
NHS was about £180m. This is, therefore, the amount of additional
funding calculated to be needed to meet the manifesto commitment.
4. To support the strategy, the government is committing
increased resources to implement the strategy amounting to:
£88m in 2009/10
£198m in 2010/11
5. Surveys of the general public have shown that the first
preference for most people (56-74%) would be to die at home. In
practice, however, only around 18% do so. 58% of people die in
hospital, 17% in care homes, 4% in a hospice and 3% elsewhere.
6. The strategy has been developed by an expert advisory board
chaired by Professor Mike Richards, National Cancer Director, and
supported by six working groups. Over 300 stakeholders from
statutory health, social care, third sector organisations,
professional and academic institutions have worked with us in the
development of the strategy