Michelle Church, Improvement Advisor, reflects on our recent learning event, which explored ways of identifying people who could benefit from a palliative approach to their care.

On 31st May 2018, test site participants from six health and social care partnerships (HSCPs) and key delivery partners across Scotland joined the Living Well in Communities team to learn and share knowledge about tools that can support identification of people who could benefit from a palliative approach to their care.

Making the case for early identification

Kirsty Boyd, consultant and lecturer in Palliative Medicine, talked about the many benefits of earlier identification:

• Helps people say what matters to them.
• Increases the opportunity for people to participate in decision-making.
• Reduces the risk of later regrets and poor outcomes.
• Gives people time for planning ahead, resulting in fewer crises.
• Reduces unplanned admissions of low benefit.
• Encourages medication review and treatment planning.
• Improves continuity and coordination of care by sharing information.

 How can we do earlier identification?

Our national clinical leads, Dr Paul Baughan and Sandra Campbell, gave an overview of the visual resource the LWiC team have developed to help compare different identification tools that are currently used in Scotland. Sandra did a before and after survey of how aware and confident participants were about the variety of tools.

How did we mobilise knowledge?

Experts from across the UK shared their tools, knowledge and experience of doing identification. People got the chance to participate in interactive workshops looking at the tools that a number of palliative care test sites. Some insights from the sessions are included below:

Anticipal and eFI electronic tools

FAST and PPP tools

PPS and SPAR Tools

SPICT4ALL and carers identification

What did people think of the event?

People felt that they had learnt about why, when and how to use different tools to support identification and inform practice. People really liked that they had the chance to network with experts and colleagues.

Overwhelmingly, the take home message was that earlier identification and communication is key to supporting those who would benefit from a palliative approach to their care.

What next?

HSCP palliative care test sites are now using the comparator to consider what tools will benefit local people and services and how people identified can be supported. This work will contribute to the vision that by 2021 everyone who could benefit from palliative care will have access to it and will support the Realistic Medicine ambition of shared decision-making and a personalised approach to care.