£1m in funding set to improve end-of-life care
AN ADDITIONAL £1m is being invested in enhancing end-oflife care services in Wales, it has been announced.
The Welsh Government says the money will go towards supporting the delivery of their End of Life Care Delivery Plan 2017-2020 which was published in March.
The three-year plan outlines how the Welsh Government intends to improve services for patients and their families across Wales.
It covers end-of-life care delivered by both primary and secondary care and the voluntary sector.
Health Secretary Vaughan Gething says this type of care has been improving in Wales since the publication of the first delivery plan in 2013.
He said patients in hospitals, and those who wish to spend their final days at home, have all benefitted.
He said: “Dying is one of life’s few certainties, and as a result of advances in modern medicine there are many people living longer with terminal illnesses.
“It is therefore vital that the best possible end of life and palliative care is made available across Wales.
“I’m pleased to allocate the additional £1m funding to support the End of Life Care Delivery Plan, which reaffirms our commitment to ensuring people have a healthy, realistic approach to dying, and are able to plan appropriately for the event.
“We want people to be able to end their days in the location of their choice – be that home, hospital or hospice and we want them to have access to high quality care wherever they live and die, whatever their underlying disease or disability.”
To ensure patients’ experiences are consistently improving, the Welsh Government says the allocated funding will be used for activities such as providing additional training for health professionals to initiate difficult conversations about palliative care with patients and their families.
This funding will also be used to support the development of an allWales streamlined, advanced care planning electronic record system, to take forward research priorities and to support GP clusters in Wales.
It will also be used to pursue a compassionate community approach to end-of-life care through projects such as the “Byw Nawr – Live Now” initiative, which aims to get people in Wales talking more openly about dying, death and bereavement through awareness raising activities and online resources.
Simon Jones, director of policy and public affairs for Marie Curie, said: “We are really pleased to see the extra £1m coming into end-of-life care in Wales as a result of the government’s budget negotiations with Plaid Cymru.
“The projects funded by this money will lead to important improvements in end-of-life care in Wales including more research, better advance care planning and more efficient ways in which doctors and nurses can record information about their patients and how best to support them, even when care is needed in an emergency and when a GP practice is closed,” Mr Jones added.
“We very much hope that the extra £1m committed this year will appear in successive budgets to enable improvements in care to continue at pace in Wales.”
In addition to this funding, plans have now been approved for a £6.75m specialist care unit at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.
Macmillan plans to donate £5m to develop the state of the art unit – its biggest single investment in Wales – with Cwm Taf contributing the further £1.75m subject to approval of a business case.