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Introduction

There are a number of End of Life Care tools which provide practical guidance and support to help health and social care staff to implement the national Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care.

Gold Standards Framework (GSF) applies to patients in the last 6-12 months of life. It was developed in primary care.

Key points include:

  • A palliative care register – this is held by the GP and identifies patients approaching the end of their life. It enables the primary care team to monitor the patient’s progress, anticipate their health and social care needs (including preemptive prescribing for anticipated symptoms or complications) and prioritise Advance Care Planning (enabling patients to express their preferences for care at the end of their life).
  • Education for all staff involved with end of life care.
  • Improved communication between disciplines and across care settings during the day and out-of-hours.

Advance care planning tools

There are a number of different documents available across the West Midlands. They are all aimed at prompting patients to discuss and document their Preferred Priorities for Care as they approach the end of life.

This might include:

  • The patient’s preferences for their health and social care e.g. where they would prefer to be cared for in the final days of life.
  • Which treatments, if clinically indicated, they would choose to accept or decline, given the likely progression of their condition including CPR.
NEXT: recognising the dying phase

DISCLAIMER

This Guide is intended for use by healthcare professionals and the expectation is that they will use clinical judgement, medical, and nursing knowledge in applying the general principles and recommendations contained within. They are not meant to replace the many available texts on the subject of palliative care.
Some of the management strategies describe the use of drugs outside their licensed indications. They are, however, established and accepted good practice. Please refer to the current BNF for further guidance.
While WMPCPS takes every care to compile accurate information , we cannot guarantee its correctness and completeness and it is subject to change. We do not accept responsibility for any loss, damage or expense resulting from the use of this information.
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