Health: End-of-life Care

Lord Walton of Detchant Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the department does not hold information about the degree of adherence to advance decisions, but I can tell the noble Baroness that there are a number of systems available in the NHS that enable patients to record their preferences for care at the end of life and the choices that they would like to make, including saying where, if possible, they want to be when they die. We know that there is widespread use in the NHS of the Preferred Priorities for Care tool that supports decisions about preferences.

We have also supported the piloting of electronic palliative care co-ordination systems to ensure that a person’s wishes and preferences for care are taken into account and to improve communication between the professions and organisations. The Information Standards Board is currently considering a proposed standard setting out a core data set to support the implementation of those systems.

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

My Lords, what evidence do the Government have regarding the number of elderly people in the population who have taken advantage, as I have, of signing an advance directive and lodging it with my general practitioner to specify what forms of treatment I would and would not wish to have if I became incompetent? What is the present position of the legal right of an individual to specify while competent a proxy who could fulfil a similar role if the individual in turn became incompetent?

[Earl Howe]

Unfortunately, my Lords, we do not hold information about how many advance decisions have been made out or pursued; those statistics are not collected centrally. However, I am aware that lasting powers of attorney, which the noble Lord will know came in under the Mental Capacity Act, are growing in popularity and number. The numbers are rising, although I do not have those statistics in my brief. We are encouraged by the fact that people are now aware that they can delegate to a loved one—a family friend or whoever—to take decisions in their best interests should they lose capacity later on.