End of Life Care: Bath and North East Somerset (BANES)

Neurological Commissioning Support was engaged by Bath and Northeast Somerset PCT to engage people affected by long-term neurological conditions to establish their views on end of life care.

‘The three organisations working together strengthen their ‘voice’ with commissioners. Working with NCS was a very positive experience. The work would have been difficult to do without them’ “The report is excellent; it is what I was hoping to get as a commissioner. Within BANES, there is still a lot to do. What we have done here can be replicated in a number of ways. Just hearing from people taking part about how it felt for them and what we can do better was really valuable.” Corinne Edwards, Assistant Director of Service Improvement NHS BANES.

Addressing this sensitive subject, our local staff engaged service users and carers affected by Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease and Motor Neurone Disease in focus groups and one-to-one interviews to establish their views and preferences on services available at the end of life.

Stakeholder conferences attended by service users, health and social care professionals and members of the voluntary sector also ensured good engagement and involvement from start to finish.

A report was produced which issued recommendations, and has resulted in:

A training programme for Advance Care Planning to be rolled out to all healthcare staff
A reference group of service users and carers being set up to monitor the PCT’s progress
A therapeutic discussion group created for service users to discuss end of life

Awarded in the NHS Involvement to Impact Awards (i2i) 2008 for its outstanding service user involvement, this project is also being published as an example of best practice.

For more information on this project, see some of our other literature, or feel free to contact us.

> To view a more in depth report of this project click here.