SPPC Blog

Developing an Adult Palliative and End of Life Care Plan for Angus Health & Social Care Partnership

This blog is by Elaine Colville, Senior Nurse for Palliative Care at Angus Health & Social Care Partnership.

There is a lot of good work taking place in Angus by people who provide palliative and end of life care and support across a range of settings.

As part of our work to develop our Strategic Commissioning Plan (2019-2022) we recognised the need to have more in-depth discussions on how to improve people’s experiences of palliative and end of life care and support and produce a plan to take forward improvements.

A local charity, Lippen Care, provided funding to support this work. In August 2018 a steering group was established with wide representation of staff, services and organisations that provide palliative and end of life care and support across Angus.

There was wide engagement with members of the public, carers and our workforce. This was a crucial step on developing the plan to ensure that individual experiences were at the heart of our work. We asked people what they thought good palliative and end of life care looked like and what we could do differently. A number of key themes emerged:

1. Compassionate & person centred care

2. Compassionate communication & conversations

3. Care closer to home

4. Getting it right for the family

5. Education & development for the workforce

6. Public health approaches to palliative and end of life care.

These themes were mapped and aligned to the results of a rapid review of national and international strategies for adult palliative and end of life care. The steering group developed outcomes for each of the six themes that would ensure people and their families receive the care experience that they expect and that staff are supported to care.

We mapped these outcomes to the Strategic Framework for Action (2015) and Scottish Government (2018 ) Strategic Guidance for Commissioning of Palliative and End of Life Care 2016-2021. We asked key stakeholders for feedback on the draft themes and outcomes. The feedback was evaluated and the outcomes were reviewed again. By June 2019 the final draft plan and outcomes were presented to our Strategic Planning Group and they gave it their approval and support. The Adult Palliative and End of Life Care Plan for Angus Health and Social Care Partnership can be accessed at www.ahscp.scot

Publishing the plan is not the end of our work. The next steps are to develop a purposeful Action Plan to transform words into reality to ensure every adult who wishes it receives high quality palliative and end of life care at the right time and in the right place. For more information contact hsciangus.tayside@nhs.net

A poster about this work is available here: Developing an Adult Palliative and End of Life Care Plan for Angus HSCP