Care of the Dying Audit - Hospitals

The first ever National End of Life Care Strategy was published by the Department of Health on 16th July 2008. The aim of the Strategy is to "make a step change in access to high quality care for all people approaching the end of life. This should be irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, religious belief, disability, sexual orientation, diagnosis or socioeconomic deprivation. High quality care should be available wherever the person may be: at home, in a care home, in hospital, in a hospice or elsewhere".

Amongst the key areas addressed by the strategy, which include raising the profile of death and dying, care planning and the coordination of care, rapid access and delivering high quality services in all locations, is a focus on the last days of life and care after death. Here the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (LCP) is highlighted and the extension of the National Care of the Dying Audit based on the LCP is recommended.

Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute Liverpool (MCPCIL) in collaboration with the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is pleased to announce the second round of this national audit. This audit is again supported by the Department of Health and Marie Curie Cancer Care. It is part of a continuous quality improvement programme in care of the dying, and is building on the success of the first round carried out in 2006/2007, which examined data from 2672 patients from 118 hospitals over a 3 month period whose care in the dying phase was delivered and documented using the LCP. It showed that while standards of symptom control for the individual patient were high, there was a need for improvement in communication (particularly with patients and primary care), the assessment of spiritual need and information sharing both before and after the death of the patient.

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