Marie Curie response to CQC 'care injustice' report
Comment published
In response to the CQC’s report, Marie Curie’s Scott Sinclair, Head of Policy & Public Affairs, England said: “We are very pleased to see that end of life care in acute hospitals is steadily improving. Most people in England die in hospital and with this trend set to continue it is vital that hospitals are places where high quality, safe end of life care is available.
“We agree strongly with the CQC’s assessment that people in England face an ‘integration lottery’ where they will receive poorer quality care in a less timely fashion if they live in an area of the country where health, social care, and other support services do not communicate and work together. In nearly a third of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), people wait for a week or more to be ‘fast-tracked’ for care at home or in a care or nursing home. In some CCGs this rises to two weeks. The national guideline is 48 hours.
“This is not right for people or efficient for the NHS and is a severe inequity that NHS England must get to grips with in its forthcoming Long Term Plan. No matter where they live, people at the end of life deserve a high quality of care when in hospital and the option to get home from hospital quickly when that is their preference.”