Trust will be 'building on the best' for palliative and end of life care

Guy’s and St Thomas’ has been named as one of the first participants in a new programme to improve palliative and end of life care across the UK.

The Trust is taking part in the ‘Building on the best’ programme, which will see hospitals learn from each other’s good practice and supporting improvements in patient care that can be applied throughout the health service.

Almost half of people who die in England and Wales currently die in hospital. The ‘Building on the best’ programme, which is supported by a partnership between the National Council for Palliative Care (NCPC), Macmillan Cancer Support, NHS England and the NHS Trust Development Authority, aims to ensure that people experience good quality and safe care, and are able to make the choices that meet theirs and their family’s wishes, wherever they are.

Dr Irene Carey, Guy’s and St Thomas’ clinical lead for end of life care, says: “We’re very pleased to be taking part in this important new programme. It’s a great opportunity for us to share our expertise and to learn from the experience of other trusts so that our patients can benefit from the highest quality palliative and end of life care.”

Guy’s and St Thomas’ has already taken part in the previous national programme ‘Transforming end of life care in acute hospitals’. ‘Building on the best’ will further develop this work, as well as exploring new areas of improvement for end of life care.

These include making information more accessible to patients and their families to enable more shared decision making, improving the handover of information and records as people move between hospital and community care, and improving pain and symptom management.

Health Minister Ben Gummer MP says: “I am determined to improve end of life care and this excellent initiative will benefit thousands of patients and their families at one of the most difficult and vulnerable moments of their lives.

“Thanks to the hard work of the NCPC and Macmillan, the crucial lessons from this programme can be evaluated, shared and implemented in hospitals across the country to ensure the NHS continues to provide high quality care 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”