RECENT UPDATES
Diary Date
On Thursday, 3rd December 2009 we are holding an all day event to provide the key stakeholders in Living and Dying Well with an opportunity to share and learn from their experiences. Further information to follow.
The Scottish Government action plan for health and wellbeing Better Health,Better Care, published in December 2007, stated a commitment to the delivery of high quality palliative care to everyone in Scotland who needs it, on the basis of established principles of equity and personal dignity and of clinical need rather than diagnosis.
Better Health, Better Care also stated the Scottish Government's intention to publish a plan during 2008 introducing for the first time a single, comprehensive approach to the provision of palliative care across Scotland. This plan also provides a basis for implementing the recommendations of the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care 2007 report Palliative and end of life care in Scotland: the case for a cohesive approach. To take this work forward, a National Clinical Lead for Palliative Care was appointed in March 2008 and an Executive Lead has since been identified within each NHS Board.
Living and Dying Well represents a cohesive and collaborative approach to the development and maintenance of equitable, high quality and sustainable palliative and end of life care services for the future. It is based on the principles of equality, dignity and quality and supports the national policy of empowering the diversity of patients, carers and the voluntary sector to be full partners in planning, improving quality and enhancing the experience of care. It takes account of the key messages and recommendations in the August 2008 Audit Scotland Review of Palliative Care Services in Scotland and advocates an approach to care which is person centred and based on neither diagnosis nor prognosis but on patient and carer needs. It advocates an approach which recognises the diversity of life circumstances of people who will need palliative and end of life care and which is responsive to these circumstances, whether they relate to age, disability, gender, race, religion/belief or sexual orientation.
