This update follows a joint statement issued in September 2014 when NHS England and PHE announced their plans to work together to test the feasibility of developing a national palliative care clinical dataset. The feasibility work involved a number of pilot sites trialling the dataset and feedback from these sites indicate that the dataset has been beneficial in a number of ways. A full evaluation is now underway and will be published in the summer, alongside the dataset which will be available for local use on a voluntary basis.

The statement also includes an update on the currency development work, advising that a definitive set of currencies will be made available for use in April 2017 and introducing plans to investigate different models for palliative care funding.

More details about the proposed plans can be found on GOV.UK