Today’s End of Life Care review has recognised the great strides we’ve made to improve care for our patients who are at the end of their lives.

We were above the national average in all five of the key clinical indicators and were one of just 37 per cent of trusts to offer face-to-face palliative care seven days a week.

In 93 per cent of cases, an individual care plan was used to assess the patient’s needs during their last hours, compared to 66 per cent nationally, and in 89 per cent of cases a dying patient was able to voice their concerns, compared to 84 per cent nationally.

We have made a raft of improvement to end of life care including:

• Gaining Gold Standard Framework (GFS) accreditation, which encourages conversations about death to plan end of life care, on an elderly care ward.
• A bereavement survey for relatives
• Robust training programme including end of life study days for clinical staff and ward-based training
• Individualised care plans based on the five priorities of end of life care listed in the review
• Advanced planning to give people more choice at the end of their life, such as if they’d rather die at home
• Dignity in death logo on the chart of patients near the end of their lives as an indication to all staff.

Dr Claire Bates, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, said:

“I’m proud of what we’ve achieved and we know that we still have improvements to make.

“The review confirms we continue to make progress and we are totally committed to our on-going journey of providing outstanding care.”