Identification of People with Palliative Care Needs
Improving the identification of people who could benefit from a palliative care approach is one of the key priorities of the Palliative Care in Partnership programme.
Timely identification of people who may benefit from a palliative care approach increases the opportunity for those people to consider their own end of life choices and enables the co-ordination of local services to support their physical, social, psychological and spiritual needs and, when practical, to achieve their preferred place of care.
Traditionally may people tend to think of palliative care as ‘only for cancer’ but in practice people living with a wide range of life limiting conditions can benefit from a palliative care approach to provide the best quality of life in their final years, months, weeks and days.
Strictly Come Dying Video (produced by the Primary Palliative Care Research Group, University of Edinburgh)
Early identification of palliative care needs is the first step to providing holistic care and support. There are a range of tools and supports available to assist health care professionals to identify patients who would benefit from a palliative care approach, some of which are listed below:
SPICT: Supportive & Palliative Care Indicators Tool
ELCOS: End of Life Care Operating System
End of Life Care Operational System