Palliative and End of Life Care Strategic Clinical Network

Overarching aim

To provide strategic leadership and expert clinical support to Integrated Care Boards and providers of Palliative and End of Life Care in East of England. The network will deliver on a number of local priorities, as well as support the national Palliative and End of Life Care strategy and the Long-Term Plan.

 

Key contacts

  • Clinical Lead – Professor Stephen Barclay
  • Lead Nurse – Jo Tonkin
  • Network Manager – Bev Pickett

To contact the team please email: england.eoepeolcscn@nhs.net

 

2022/23 Focus Areas

NHS England Palliative and End of Life Care Strategic Clinical Networks (PEoLC SCNs) have been in place nationally since April 2021. Each NHS England Region has a PEoLC SCN that seeks to support the delivery of high-quality PEoLC for people of all ages, in all settings and with all medical conditions. Led by a core team, the networks combine the experience of clinicians, service commissioners and patients to improve the delivery of care to patients across primary, secondary, tertiary settings, including social care and the voluntary sector.

The NHS Long Term Plan (LTP) (2019) committed to introduce proactive and personalised care and support planning for everyone identified as being in their last year of life, to improve end of life care. It also specifically considered children and young people’s end of life care. To support delivery of the NHS LTP) the PEoLC Delivery Plan for 2022 – 2025 was developed by the national PEoLC team with three key strategic priorities:

  • Improving access
  • Improving quality
  • Improving sustainability

 

In addition to this, the Health and Care Bill (2022) includes an amendment to Clause 16 which explicitly references palliative care as a service (or facility) that Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) have a duty to commission as they consider appropriate, as part of the health service.

 

The aims of PEoLC SCNs are:

  • Through clinical leadership, enabling outstanding clinical care to ensure PEoLC is personalised for all ages in all settings, focused on the three PEoLC Delivery Plan strategic priorities (above)
  • Enable working across Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) and sub-regional footprints, creating opportunities for economies of scale and improving access for patients of all ages, e.g. 24/7 access
  • Provide a platform for joint contracting to support development of dynamic and flexible new models of care for PEoLC
  • To reduce health inequalities within PEoLC, improving equity of access and outcomes for underserved populations
  • Combine the experience of clinicians, multi-disciplinary working, the input of people with lived experience and clinical leadership to improve the delivery of care to patients of all ages, delivering true integration across primary, secondary, and often tertiary care
  • Each region to establish and maintain a PEoLC SCN that draws together health and social care statutory and Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations, facilitating senior management accountability.

 

Role of the PEoLC SCN Team

The responsibilities of the PEoLC SCN team include:

  • To promote whole system working approach (as outlined in the NHS Long Term Plan) and ensure robust consultation and agreement with ICS leads in terms of delivering the three national PEoLC Delivery plan priorities and strengthening PEoLC as a strategic priority within ICS planning
  • Work in collaboration with other PEoLC SCNs, other SCNs and the National PEoLC team
  • Work across regional and subregional footprints, depending on size of regions and ICSs, to align with the changes following the implementation of the Health and Care Bill
  • Champion strategic co-production which includes representing the voices of people with lived experience and seeks to achieve outcomes for people
  • Provide strategic clinical leadership and support to statutory and non-statutory health and care organisations to enable delivery of high-quality personalised PEoLC across all ages in all settings
  • Provide support to local systems to target interventions in areas of reducing health inequalities and improving equity of access to PEoLC services for underserved populations
  • Connect and collaborate with system-level networks, e.g. children and young people, dementia, frailty, long-term conditions and cancer to ensure the PEoLC SCNs work with ICSs to deliver high quality personalised PEoLC for all in all settings
  • Develop project and programme management arrangements, including mechanisms for identifying, managing and escalating risks.

 

Key Documents

 

Useful resources

Below we have highlighted publications and resources that we hope you will find useful: