Abstract: Death and dying are inevitable. High quality and accessible palliative and end of life care can help people who are facing progressive life-threatening and life-limiting illness, and those dear to them, by focusing on their quality of life and addressing the problems associated with their situation. This paper draws attention to the scale of the challenge, some of the key areas we could address and the shifts in culture, mindset and leadership approach that are needed.
Conclusion: The Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care Framework explicitly recognises through its six ambitions, i.e. each person is seen as an individual, each person has fair access to care, maximising comfort and wellbeing, care is coordinated, staff are prepared to care, and each community is prepared to help. It acknowledges that achieving this whole-system approach of ‘what good looks like’ in palliative and end of life care requires every individual, organisation and society as a whole to work together, so that the goal of the best possible end of life care can be achieved.
Read the full article here. (J R Coll Physicians Edinb 2017; 47: 369–73)