Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the proposals made in each Sustainability and Transformation Plan regarding end of life care; and if he will make a statement.

On 5 July 2016 we published ‘Our Commitment to you for end of life care’, which set out what everyone should expect from their care at the end of life and the actions we are taking to make high quality, personalised care a reality for everyone by 2020. Over the last 12 months the National End of Life Care Programme Board has been taking forward implementation, and we are aiming to publish a progress report on the delivery of the Commitment this summer. This progress report will also set out the work being undertaken by the Programme Board to engage local Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships to support service planning for end of life of care and to embed choice. ‘Our Commitment to you for end of life care’ can be found at the following link:

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/536326/choice-response.pdf

Information regarding the proportion of people with access to advance care planning in advance of their death is not collected. However, the Government commitment also set out plans to will work with voluntary sector partners to raise public awareness nationally of issues around death and dying and the importance of enabling individuals to make end of life care plans in advance. NHS England contributed funding to the Dying Matters campaign in 2016/17 and also promoted Dying Matters Week via the National End of Life Care Programme Board and through the National Palliative and End of Life Care Network.

We know there are inequities in terms of access to, and experience of, end of life care for lower socio-economic groups. Public Health England’s National End of Life Care Intelligence Network has published ‘What we know data’ reports that have linked lower socioeconomic status to lower rates of home death. That is why the ‘Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care, a national framework for local action’, includes ‘fair access to care’ as one of the six Ambitions. The framework was developed and signed up to by over 27 partners from across the system and the Government is supportive of its work. The Public Health England reports and information about the Ambitions Framework and the partnership can be found at the following links:

www.endoflifecare-intelligence.org.uk/resources/publications/

http://endoflifecareambitions.org.uk/