Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the findings by the charity Together for Short Lives in its report Commissioning children’s palliative care in England: 2017 edition that (1) only 35 per cent of clinical commissioning groups are implementing HM Government’s guidance set out in Our Commitment to You for End of Life Care, and (2) that 46 per cent have no plans to do so; and whether they intend to conduct a review into how implementation levels can be improved and made consistent throughout England.

In July 2016, the Government set out its commitment to everyone at the end of life in the Government response to the independent What’s important to me. A Review of Choice in End of Life Care. A copy of the Review is attached. Our Commitment to you for end of life care: The Government Response to the Review of Choice in End of Life Care (the Choice Commitment) 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. A copy of the Government Response is attached. On 21 September 2017 we published One year on: the government response to the review of choice in end of life care setting out the good progress made in delivering this over the first year. A copy is attached.

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 Together for Short Lives (TFSL), a range of activity is ongoing to achieve this. It is right that clinical commissioning groups have autonomy to shape services locally, and it is important that, where needed, more is done to provide them with tools, evidence, support and guidance to demonstrate the benefits of delivering the Government’s vision for end of life care. NHS England, Public Health England and the Ambitions Partnership (comprising national organisations across the statutory and voluntary sectors, including TFSL) have provided a wealth of support over the first year, including: currencies to improve transparency in specialist palliative commissioning; new guidance on cost effective commissioning; data about end of life care to assist Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STP) as they develop their plans for services; and seven evaluations of different approaches to 24/7 models of care.

Early in 2017, NHS England will be holding workshops with a range of STP leads to provide practical advice and support on developing effective end of life care services and demonstrating the value they can bring. In addition, TFSL has been commissioned by NHS England to promote the adoption of best practice approaches to children’s that are recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and report back on barriers to implementation locally.