Charity coalition campaigns for free social care for end of life support

Social care should be accessible and free to everyone at the end of their life, a charity coalition has claimed.

The coalition, made up of six charities including Macmillan Cancer Support, the Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association and Sue Ryder, has published the report ‘How could free social care at the end of life work in practice?’ which looks into the current state of end of life services in England.

The call for improvements has been made after the report claimed there is a gap between official guidance and the reality of end of life social care taking place.

Labelled the ‘implementation gap’, NHS England has been urged to investigate why existing social care guidance is not being followed by some local services.

Mike Hobday, director of policy and research at Macmillan Cancer Support, said:

“This report shows that access to free social care at the end of life, which gives people a real say in where they are cared for, is only available in small pockets across the country.”

The Continuing Healthcare Fast Track system is run by the NHS to meet the needs of people at the end of their life in a quick and easy way. It aims to do this by allowing people to bypass long assessment processes and offers an easier route to Continuing Health Care (CHC) funded care.

The coalition has claimed the current lack of awareness and clarity over this established end of life care process is stopping people from having a choice about where they can be cared for.

Mr Hobday continued: “We know the majority of cancer patients who are dying in hospital, at great expense to the NHS, want to be able to die in the comfort of their own home surrounded by their loved ones. We want to see more examples of the innovative services highlighted in the report and universal access to free social care at the end of life.”

Charities have urged innovative new services to come forward to develop better ways for social care to reach people at the end of their lives.

End of life service STARS care Liverpool was commended in the report for its high quality end of life service provided for the last 12 weeks of a patient’s life.

Mike Smeeton, director of health and social care at Sue Ryder, said:

“It is encouraging to see new initiatives like Stars which focus on improving the quality of life for people at the end of life through the provision of free social care.

“However, we believe that this practice needs to be more common place throughout the country so that everyone, no matter where they live, can achieve the death that they want.

“When it works well, we know that Continuing Health Care can be transformational in ensuring that people access appropriate and adequate care when they are dying, which affects not only them but also their families and carers.”

The recommendation was made to raise the confidence of professionals in the end of life area to educate them on how to make the most of current services and support available.

Chris James, director of external affairs at the Motor Neurone Disease Association, said:

“The researchers have highlighted the unacceptable inequity that currently exists across England in dying people’s access to social care that is free at point of use. Innovative models like STARS in Liverpool should be commended and replicated across the country, but this requires a catalyst from decision makers at the top as well as those personally committed to the agenda at the local level.

“The Government has sent welcoming signals about the introduction of free social care in recent months and years – this report adds more weight to the argument that the time to make this a reality has arrived.”