Palliative care an essential component of treatment

Categories: Care.

The guidance on improving care and support for people living with cancer also recommends a smooth transition between cancer support, palliative care and end of life services. It suggests that triggers should be developed for alerting palliative and end of life care services, and for considering entry of a patient into the end of life care register.

Many cancer survivors have unmet needs, they fear that the cancer will come back, or need help managing the consequences of treatment.

‘Living with and beyond cancer: taking action to improve outcomes’ outlines a number of actions that commissioners and providers can take to improve the lives of this growing number of cancer survivors.

The report sets out a framework for survivorship in five different steps and details the actions needed at each:

  • information and support from the point of diagnosis
  • promoting recovery
  • sustaining recovery
  • managing the consequences of treatment
  • supporting people with active and advanced disease.

Underpinning the recommendations is the need to promote a cultural shift towards shared decision making and supporting patient self-management.

The report also draws parallels between the interventions required to support cancer survivors and those required to support people with long-term conditions generally. It recommends that support for cancer survivors be developed hand-in-hand with the broader programme of work on long-term conditions, allowing each to learn from the other.

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