Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made the ability of the Government to meet its end of life care choice commitment to babies, children and young people by 2020.

In July 2016, the Government set out its commitment to everyone at the end of life in the Government response to the independent Review of Choice in End of Life Care. Our Commitment to you for end of life care set out what everyone should expect from their care at the end of life and the actions we are taking to make high quality and personalisation a reality for all, both adults and children, and to end variation in end of life care across the health system by 2020. On 21 September 2017 we published One year on: the government response to the review of choice in end of life care, an assessment of the progress made in delivering this over the first year. Copies of the Choice Commitment and the progress report can be found at the following links:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/choice-in-end-of-life-care-government-response

www.gov.uk/government/publications/choice-in-end-of-life-care-government-progress

Through the Mandate, we have asked NHS England to deliver the Choice Commitment, and working through NHS England’s National Programme Board for End of life Care with all key system partners and stakeholders, including the children’s end of life care charity Together for Short Lives. In the 2017-18 Mandate we asked for the identification of metrics to assess quality and choice in end of life care. As a result, we have in place a new indicator to measure the proportion of people with three or more emergency admissions in their final 90 days of life, which will help us assess how well patients with end of life care needs are being supported by local health and care services out of hospital and in the community.

For 2018-19, the Government’s Mandate asks NHS England to increase the percentage of people identified as likely to be in their last year of life, so that their end of lifecare can be improved by personalising it according to their needs and preferences at an earlier stage. NHS England will use the Quality Outcomes Framework to demonstrate such an increase by looking at the percentage of people who are on the general practitioner register for supportive and palliative care, and consider expected levels based on local populations. Further work will also be undertaken to develop indicators that will enable NHS England to assess the effectiveness of local health economies in delivering choice and quality in end of life care in line with the Government’s commitment.

NHS England knows that it can be difficult for some commissioners to develop suitable commissioning models for children with palliative and end of care needs, given the relatively small number of children concerned and their geographical spread. NHS England has established a Task and Finish Group to bring together knowledge and expertise in children’s end of life care to consider the development of commissioning models suitable for this vulnerable group of patients. The group met for the first time on 31 May 2018.