Social care for people who are likely to die within 12 months should be free, says a new report by the Commons Health Committee.
The advice has come following a review of palliative and end of life care, which found “great variation in quality and practice across both acute and community settings”.
The Committee has “strongly recommended” that the government provides free social care at the end of life to ensure that no one dies in hospital for want of a social care package of support.
The Chair of the Committee, Dr Sarah Wollaston MP, said: “There are unacceptable levels of variation in the care that people receive and this needs to be addressed so that high quality end of life care is available to everyone regardless of their age, medical condition or where they live.”
The report also proposed that a senior named person in each NHS Trust is given responsibility for monitoring how end of life care is being delivered within their organisation.
Round-the-clock access to specialist palliative care in acute and community settings was also called for, with an emphasis on making the expertise more equitably available to people with a non-cancer diagnosis, older people and those with dementia.
Responding to the report, George McNamara, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at Alzheimer’s Society, said: “Dementia is all too often overlooked as a being a terminal illness and as a consequence, there are unacceptable failures to prepare and plan for end of life care. People with dementia are also being forced to pay a dementia tax of thousands of pounds for essential care, especially towards the end of their life.
“Many people with dementia die in hospital and are not given the choice or consulted about their care wishes. End of life care planning needs to be better. While we welcome the call for free social care but our health and social care system needs to be person-centred, not system focused.”
The Committee’s close look at the state of end of life care followed the independent Review of the Liverpool Care Pathway, chaired by Baroness Neuberger in 2013.
