Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of (a) end of life and (b) other palliative care services provided by the NHS on patient quality of life; and whether the new 10-year health plan for the NHS will include measures on ensuring equal access to palliative care.

As part of the work to develop a 10-Year Health Plan, we will carefully be considering policies, including those that impact people with palliative and end of life care needs, with input from the public, patients, health staff, and our partners, including those in the hospice sector.

Addressing healthcare inequity is a core focus of the 10-Year Health Plan, to ensure the National Health Service is there for anyone who needs it, whenever they need it. We have established 11 working groups to take forward policy development that will feed into the plan. This includes working groups focused on how care should be designed and delivered to improve healthcare equity, alongside ensuring that access to healthcare services is effective and responsive.

We have launched a significant public engagement process, and we would encourage all those with an interest in palliative and end of life care to take part in that process so that we can fully understand what is not working as well as it should and what the potential solutions are. This public engagement process is available at the following link:

https://change.nhs.uk/en-GB/