Death is something that will touch all of us at sometime in our lives, the death of a loved one, people close to us and indeed our own death. The end of life experience can often be frightening, baffling and isolating as the dying person and their loved ones attempt to get the best possible medical care, support and advice to meet their particular needs.

End of life should be important to us all, although it is difficult to define, as it varies for each individual, but typically people become frailer, less mobile and their symptoms and treatments increase.

To make sure best possible care happens, we are developing ways of working that:

• Put the patient, and those closest to them, at the centre of what we do. This means listening to patients and their families and responding to their views about what they want and what is important to them and designing our services around their needs rather than the needs of our services.
• Deliver the highest standard of care for everyone experiencing end of life, making sure the views of people who are more vulnerable, or find it more difficult to difficult to understand our services are heard so what we offer reaches everyone.
• Recognise patients, their families, our doctors and nurses working together and learning from each other offers a better end of life experience
• Encourage the dying person and their family to tell us when we succeed or fall short of what we want to achieve, so together we can learn and gain the best possible outcomes for everyone.

How we care for the dying has been described as ‘a measure of society as a whole’ by the National End of Life Care Strategy. 

In Sheffield there is a range of high quality specialist end of life care services and generalists that support end of life care. Through the publication of our local End of Life Care Strategy, NHS Sheffield and our care providers are aiming to address the barriers in Sheffield that prevent people from dying in the place of their preference.

NHS SheffieldCCG’s Commissioning Manager (Active Ageing, Cancer, End of Life Care & Long Term Conditions) - Karen Danvers