Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the Modern Service Framework for Palliative and End of Life Care is implemented consistently by local integrated care boards; and when his Department plans to publish the interim statement on that Framework.

We will publish an interim update on the Modern Service Framework (MSF) for Palliative Care and End-of-Life Care shortly. The final MSF will be published this autumn.

The MSF will provide a clinically-led, evidence-based framework to support sustained improvement in patient and carer outcomes, including reducing both inequality and unwarranted variation. Areas of action will be identified for those commissioning and delivering services, with associated performance and outcome metrics to support system accountability. The MSF will seek to embed palliative care and end-of-life care within a strategic commissioning model that is centred on population need.