End of life care strategy board members named
26 Jan 2007 03:45 PM
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.