How your feedback is helping to improve end of life care
In the last 18 months, we have been working closely with local NHS and care services to help them improve support for people near the end of life, after we started to hear an increase in poor experiences of care.
During the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, some people told us that their decisions about care and treatment were not always being respected. And some people were not getting the support they needed.
We wrote to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough health chiefs back in December 2020 to call for improvements in care.
We also wanted to see a programme of training for health and care staff to help them better support people's choices around end of life care, including having conversations with people using the ReSPECT form developed by the Resuscitation Council UK.
ReSPECT stands for Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment. And is a process that helps your care teams understand what would be important to you in an emergency. This includes what types of care or treatment you would or wouldn't want to receive.
Find out more about ReSPECT and making choices about end of life care
What has changed?
Since then, the local NHS has developed a new palliative care hub that coordinates care for people via the NHS 111 option 3 service – which now runs 24 hours a day.
In addition, they are rolling out a ReSPECT training programme to community based health and care staff such as GPs and care workers to improve how they support people at the end of life.
We’re part of the local NHS task group overseeing some of these initiatives, where we share personal stories to help improve the support that people receive.
Listen to Laura's story
Healthwatch Non-Executive Director Laura Beer campaigns to improve palliative care and is the Board lead for this important area of work.
In a new blog and podcast, she shares her dad, Graham's, difficult experience of care in his final months. And how she's used this experience to champion better support for those near the end of life.
Healthwatch Chief Executive Sandie Smith, said:
“It’s vital that people are supported by health and care staff to make choices about what is important to them near the end of their life. And that those choices are respected.
We wrote to the NHS almost two years ago calling for an improvement to end of life care. In particular, we wanted better training for health and care staff supporting people near the end of their life.
So we have welcomed the introduction of the palliative care hub and the ResPECT training programme which are making a difference for local people.
But we know that more needs to be done to support people’s choices, particularly for those whose voices aren’t always heard, such as people with learning disabilities, people from our poorer communities, and those with nobody to speak up for them.”
