Introduction

“Progress for Providers – end of life, goes a long way to making personalised support an achievable goal. It offers comprehensive and concrete suggestions. Personalised support will be increasingly important as we consider future needs for care and support at the end of life.”
Heather Richardson, National Clinical Lead, Help the Hospices

Progress for Providers End of Life is a self-assessment tool, primarily for managers and teams who are delivering end of life care at home, hospice or care home.

Being person-centred in your approach to end of life care helps the people you support to have more choice and control, and for staff to provide the best support they can in ways that reflect what is important to the person. Working in this way is not about doing more, but doing things differently.

End of life care is care that “helps all those with advanced, progressive, incurable illness to live as well as possible until they die. It enables the supportive and palliative care needs of both the patient and family to be identified and met throughout the last phase of life and into bereavement. It includes management of pain and other symptoms and provision of psychological, social, spiritual and practical support.” We are using the term ‘end of life’ to mean the likely last twelve months of the person’s life.

This Progress for Providers was developed by a group who included hospice managers, palliative care services managers, health professionals, and an adult social care commissioner. We consulted widely on the first draft through the Executive Clinical Leaders in Hospices and Palliative Care group (of nurses and clinical directors), Help the Hospices, hospice managers and social care staff. We then adapted this based on feedback and have tested it in a range of hospices and care homes.

In developing this Progress for Providers tool we have taken into account the Department of Health End of Life Strategy (2008); Supporting People to Live and Die Well – a framework for social care at the end of life (2010); the National Institute for Clinical and Healthcare Excellence (NICE) Quality Standard for End of Life Care for adults (2011); The Gold Standards Framework; Advanced Care Planning: A Guide for Health and Social Care (2008); learning from the Liverpool National Care Pathway for the Dying Patient; ‘Making it Real’ from Think Local Act Personal; The Adults Social Care and Public Health Outcomes Frameworks (2012)and Preferred Priorities for Care (2011); Patient Experience and the NHS Outcomes Framework Domain 4 ‘Ensuring that people have a positive experience of care’ (2011); CQC Outcomes and the Francis Report (2013). In the Appendices you can see how this Progress for Providers reflects a sample of these frameworks and guidance.