Improving community-based specialist palliative care

The North West London Integrated Care System (ICS) have shared the feedback from their recent consultation about palliative and end-of-life care. This feedback is now being used to consider how services can be developed to ensure that people across Brent and the wider North West London area receive the best possible care when coming to the end of their life.

The key findings from the research have been separated into eight broad reasons demonstrating why we need to improve the way community-based specialist services are delivered:

• To review the valuable learning and feedback received from previous reviews of palliative and end-of-life care services carried out in Brent, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster, and the further engagement activity carried out in Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow.
• To bring services in line with national policy.
• To meet patients’ changing needs arising from changes in the population. By 2040, the number of deaths within England and Wales is expected to rise by 130,000 each year. More than half of the additional deaths will be people aged 85 or older, so there will be an increased need for palliative and end-of-life care services.
• To reduce health inequalities and social exclusion, which act as a barrier to people receiving community-based specialist palliative care.
• To make sure that everyone receives the same level of care, regardless of where they live. At the moment there are differences in the quality and level of community-based specialist care services that patients, families and carers across North West London receive.
• To make it easier for people to access services, particularly across our more diverse communities. Some of our services are not joined up and do not work well together, and we need to change this.
• To cope with the increasing financial challenge, the NHS is facing and the effect this has on community-based specialist palliative care.
• To reduce the difficulty, we are having finding, recruiting and keeping suitably qualified staff, and the knock-on effect this has on our ability to provide services.

You can learn more about the work that has been carried out, as well as what comes next, on the NW London ICS website. They have also published a series of case studies illustrating both the positive experiences and the challenges that palliative care can bring.

The ICS has also committed to ongoing engagement with local communities, to ensure that your views and challenges continue to be heard. We will share these opportunities as they become available.