Funding Allocated For Hospice Care, Wales

Main Category: Palliative Care / Hospice Care
Article Date: 28 Jul 2009 - 11:00 PDT

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Health Minister Edwina Hart announced the allocation of £4million Assembly Government funding for hospices and palliative care services across Wales.

Just over half of the total, £2.1 million, will help fund the clinical palliative and end-of-life care services provided by 18 hospices throughout Wales and £1.9 million will be spent on NHS palliative care services.

The allocations for independent and NHS care services are based on recommendations of an expert group headed by Baroness Ilora Finlay, a consultant in palliative care.

The group aims to provide a fairer funding system for hospices.

Part of the funding will be dedicated to the expansion of the Cancer Network Information System Cymru, a computerised clinical record to enable health professionals quick access key information to monitor and care for patients.

One of the other key areas in development is out-of-hours services and the aim to make seven-day-a-week care more widely available and fairly distributed across Wales. Extra support will be made available to patients at home as part of a managed clinical network.

Work is ongoing to ensure services are consultant-led, with support from multidisciplinary teams including specialist palliative care nurses and other health professionals, with consultants on NHS contracts.

Edwina Hart said:

"For people with progressive and life threatening conditions, good quality palliative care services are vital. I wish to ensure that the level of care provided, at what is a very distressing time, is the very best possible and people have access to services consistently across Wales."

Baroness Finlay added:

"The Government's support for palliative care services in Wales is crucial for the further development of high-quality services across the whole of Wales. This ensures that patients and family needs can be met and the quality life improved even as the end approaches.

"It is vital that we move to a change of work patterns in order to put the patient at the centre of their care. Most patients' care is delivered by GPs, nurses and hospital teams, but they need to be able to have the back-up and support of excellent specialist services wherever the patient is in Wales."

Notes

Baroness Finlay and the Palliative Care Implementation Board have been leading on the implementation of the Sugar Report (by the Wales Palliative Care Planning Group, led by Viv Sugar, Chair of the Welsh Consumer Council), published in July 2008.

The funding model aims to ensure fairness of service provision across Wales, recognising rurality, poverty and areas of ageing populations as well as the higher mortality rates in Wales than in England.

Current levels of Local Health Board funding to services should not be decreased without consultation with the Implementation Board; it is not replaced by any allocation of central Welsh Assembly Government funds.

CaNISC

Cancer Network Information System Cymru, or simply CaNISC, is an online computer system holding information from a patient's interactions with health professionals and was launched as a national service in April 2009.

It aims to make sure the most important and relevant information is available to health professionals at all times and in all places, helping to provide the best possible care to patients.

Information is entered into CANISC by cancer units and centres. Entry can be online during clinical interactions, electronic by integration with other IT systems, or following data collection using specific forms. This summary electronic case record is available at all times and covers both emergency and elective care.

Some trusts are also using locally-held systems to gather cancer information, but the National Assembly for Wales has now agreed to back CANISC as it is developed to meet the majority of cancer information needs and becomes the single system for Wales.

Developing CANISC as a national system will bring improvements to the gathering and recording of cancer information which will ultimately improve the quality of care for the patient.

Source
Welsh Assembly Government