Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the standard of palliative care.

No specific recent assessment has been made.

Palliative care providers are routinely inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and assessed on the quality of palliative care they provide. During the pandemic the CQC have suspended these routine inspections to reduce the pressure on health and social care services. The CQC are continuing to monitor providers using patient feedback.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have worked with partners to ensure patients continue to receive high-quality palliative and end of life care during the COVID-19 outbreak. Guidance made available includes the Royal College of General Practitioners specialty guide ‘Community Palliative, End of Life and Bereavement Care in the COVID-19 pandemic’, published on 22 March. It sets out recommendations to support commissioners and clinicians to maintain high-quality palliative care, while taking into account infection spread and social distancing requirements. This guidance is available at the following link:

elearning.rcgp.org.uk/mod/page/view.php?id=10537