New plans unveiled to improve NHS end-of-life care

New plans to provide high-quality, compassionate end-of-life care through the NHS have been unveiled by the Department of Health.

Following an independent review of end-of-life care, the government has outlined six key commitments to end variations in the standard of care across the health system by 2020.

These include providing honest discussions between care professionals and dying people, giving patients more informed choices about their care, and implementing a more personalised approach to treatment.

Other key priorities include making efforts to discuss these personalised care plans with medical professionals, involving family and carers in dying people's care and identifying a main contact so dying people know who they should speak to at any time of day.

NHS and care professionals will be expected to reflect these commitments in their work, with measures to be developed to ensure local health and care leaders are meeting the standards expected of them.

Health minister Ben Gummer said: "Already there are exemplary models of good care and we will ensure that where care is not so good we can learn from what is best and translate it to where it is needed most."