NCPC to hold conference focusing on Government’s End of Life Care Commitment

Getting Real About the National Commitment will bring together experts from palliative, social and medical care, and will explore in detail at how the National Commitment will change end of life care for everyone in England.

Speakers will include: Sir Bruce Keogh, Medical Director for NHS England, and Lyn Romeo, Chief Social Worker for Adults at the Department of Health. There will also be workshops and a panel session asking how the medical, social care and voluntary sectors can ensure that the National Commitment will make a real, positive change to end of life care.

The Government’s End of Life Care Commitment –  which responded to an earlier independent review of end of life care. – was launched last July.

It made six key commitments to the public to end variation in end of life care across the health system by 2020.

They are:

• honest discussions between care professionals and dying people
• dying people making informed choices about their care
• personalised care plans for all
• the discussion of personalised care plans with care professionals
• the involvement of family and carers in dying people’s care
• a main contact so dying people know who to contact at any time of day

 Commenting on the conference Claire Henry, Chief Executive of the NCPC, said

“This will be a fantastic opportunity for people to really dig into what the National Commitment will mean in practice. It isn’t only the first event to do so: it also offers a range of speakers and workshops to discuss the agenda on how the National Commitment moves forward.

“We were pleased when the Government made the National Commitment on End of Life Care last year, but now we need to see how it is going to work in practice. We have put this event together because the National Commitment is going to make a difference to everyone, and it’s essential that we all understand both the challenges and the opportunities.”
 
The conference takes place on March 10 in London.

It is open to anyone with an interest in improving end of life care at national and local level including: commissioners and other local decision-makers, people working in service redesign and improvement, staff based in acute settings, primary and community care, care homes, housing and hospices and also people with personal experience of end of life care.