End of life care
Helpful information about palliative and end of life care within Surrey and how it can be accessed.
Last reviewed: 7 October 2024
One day we will all die, and we want a good, pain free death in a place of our choice.
To allow this to happen, we need to talk about death with our family and friends, and our doctor, to make them aware of our wishes, and to find out what the options are. The Dying Matter Coalition aims to help people talk more openly about dying, death and bereavement, and to make plans for the end of life. Their website will help you start those conversations.
What is palliative and end of life care?
End of life care is support for people who are in the last months or years of their life. End of life care should help you to live as well as possible until you die, and to die with dignity. Providers of care should ask you about your wishes and preferences and take these into account. They should also support your family, and carers.
Surrey Heartlands Health and Care Partnership has adopted the What Matters Most Charter to help support better conversations which enable personal wishes to be heard.
End of life care includes palliative care. If you have an incurable illness, palliative care makes you as comfortable as possible by managing pain and other distressing symptoms. It may also involve psychological, social, and spiritual support.
What is ReSPECT?
ReSPECT stands for Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment. The ReSPECT process creates a summary of personalised recommendations for a person's clinical care in a future emergency in which they do not have capacity to make or express choices. Such emergencies may include death or cardiac arrest, but are not limited to those events. The process is intended to respect both patient preferences and clinical judgement.
ReSPECT has been introduced across Surrey Heartlands Health and Care Partnership, and you may be invited to have a ReSPECT conversation.
The ReSPECT and You: Planning Together guide on the Resuscitation Council UK website provides more information.
How to find out more about local end of life care services
Details of local providers of care, information and support can be found on the end of life care pages of Connect to Support Surrey. These pages provide a wide range of useful resources for end of life care and beyond for carers in Surrey.
Palliative and End of Life Care Strategy 2021 - 2026
Surrey Heartlands Health and Care Partnership has a key role to play in ensuring that people with palliative and end of life care needs can access and receive high quality personalised care and support.
In March 2021, the Surrey Health and Wellbeing Board approved the Palliative and End of Life Care Strategy which set out Surrey Heartlands' ambitions to improve palliative and end of life care. The publication of the strategy was the culmination of many months of work that brought together partners involved in every part of end of life care to look at how we could enhance palliative and end of life care for our citizens.
Our ambitions across Surrey Heartlands built on the NHS' national ambitions for end of life care and are:
- Everyone is seen as an individual, with care tailored to meet their needs and wishes.
- Everyone has equal access to palliative and end of life care.
- People are made to feel comfortable and their wider wellbeing needs are met.
- Care is coordinated, with different services working together.
- Staff have the skills and knowledge to provide the best care.
- Communities come together to provide help and support.
Delivery of this ambitious strategy is being led at a local level by our place partnerships of local health and care organisations and local authorities. These partnerships are working together to agree how they can best meet the aims of this strategy and how they can work together to improve care for their local populations.
See Surrey Heartland's end of life care webpage to view the Palliative and End of Life Care Strategy.