Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the NHS Long Term Plan in achieving the Government’s commitment to end variation in end-of-life care by 2020.

‘Our Commitment to you for end of life care’, published in July 2016, set out what everyone should expect from their care at the end of life and the actions we are taking to make high quality care a reality for all. Since its publication, NHS England has been working to deliver the Choice Commitment, as set out in the Government’s Mandate to the National Health Service. Through its National Programme Board for End of life Care, a range of activity has been coordinated and undertaken with all key system partners care and stakeholders to improve equity of access to, and experience of, palliative and end of life care. A progress report was published the following year on 21 September 2017.

Key to reducing variation and delivering personalised care is ensuring that patients are identified as likely to be in their last year of life. This means their end of life care can be improved by personalising it according to their needs and preferences at an earlier stage. However, it is also vital that services are available to provide the care to people in the community and in their homes in a timely way. The Long Term Plan published on 7 January 2019, set out significant investment and activity to drive further improvement in both these areas in support of the Government’s Choice Commitment.