National Council for Palliative Care

"This report summarises some of the key issues facing the health and social care workforce in delivering end of life care. It suggests that a much greater commitment to workforce planning and development is needed at national and local level. It identifies gaps in what is known about workforce numbers; the data that is available signals possible succession planning problems, with a large proportion of senior specialist nurses aged over 50 and due to retire in the next decade. Key chapters in the report focus specifically on: the data gap; the ageing workforce; community nurses; training staff with the right skills; and the provision of social care. The report makes a number of recommendations, including that that staff who are not specialised in the provision of palliative care receive regular training to enable them to deliver high quality care to people at the end of their lives; and that social care be appropriately valued for the important part it plays in allowing people to die in their place of usual residence and that initiatives continue to be put in place to enable health and social care services to work in a coordinated way. "… (más)