Back- Good communication is essential to delivering high-quality, compassionate end of life care, says new Ombudsman report.
- Government is urged to prioritise end of life care as part of its 10 Year Plan reforms by prioritising it in the roll out for a Single Patient Record and via training to support professionals to have critical conversations about patients’ prognosis and wishes.
- One case involves a man who was not informed for a month after it was confirmed by tests that his cancer had spread. He found out accidentally and died two months later.
Patients nearing end of life are being failed by poor, unclear communication that compromises care and compounds grief, according to a new report by England’s Health Ombudsman.
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) is urging the Government to prioritise improvements to end of life care as part of its NHS reforms.
The report, Conversations that matter most: improving communication in end of life care, highlights widespread failings in the way professionals working in NHS end of life care communicate with patients, families and carers, and between teams and care settings.
In one case, a Trust failed to clearly and promptly inform a man that his cancer had spread and was terminal. He found out by accident from his GP.
The Ombudsman’s newly published five-year strategy has committed to improving communication in public services as a way of rebuilding trust between the citizen and state. Too often, patients and families are not listened to or communicated with clearly. When the patient voice is not heard, opportunities to resolve issues early are lost, avoidable harm can be repeated, and complaints become harder to resolve and learn from.
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Source: Office of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, UK
