NCB Now: Review of how palliative care should be funded
Monday, January 24, 2011
CBN is co-ordinating responses from the child bereavement field to the Palliative Care Funding Review.
In the coalition agreement, the government made a commitment to introduce per-patient funding for palliative care. Putting this system in place will take several years, so it has set up an independent review to make recommendations about how this should happen. The review is chaired by Tom Hughes-Hallett of Marie Curie Cancer Care and advised by Professor Sir Alan Craft. The review is looking at palliative care for both children and adults.
The review team's interim report was published in early December and drew on extensive consultation with the child and adult palliative care sectors to define core dedicated palliative care services. Importantly, core components include bereavement support for families and carers.
Next steps for the team include making recommendations about which of these core components should be funded through the NHS as a statutory responsibility, and which should be funded through a "top-up" by the voluntary sector, private sector or individuals.
CBN will be co-ordinating a response from the child bereavement field. CBN's Grief Matters for Children campaign sets out the high-quality bereavement support that should be available to children in each area of the country. CBN is now working with its members to develop a consensus about what aspects or proportion of this support for children should be state funded.
It will be consulting with members throughout spring at regional events and will also host a national consultation event on 24 February in London where it will be able to share its views with the Palliative Care Funding Review team. Please contact Alison Penny at apenny@ncb.org.uk if you are interested in attending.
KEY POINTS FROM THE INTERIM REPORT
Review consultation respondents said there should be:
- 24/7 access to community services
- Better integration of services across health and social care
- An increased focus on outcomes and patient choice
- A reduction of inequalities in the system, be they geographical or funding
At this stage, the review team thinks that the new funding mechanism should be a national system that is implemented locally:
- Across health and social care services
- Through packages that are based on people's needs rather than on their disease or age
- Commissioned at a local or sub-national level
