September 3, 2015

expert encounter: end of life care, Cicely Saunders Institute, King’s College London

NICE recently published their draft guideline on end of life care which will replace the Liverpool Care Pathway. The draft guideline was open for public consultation until Wednesday 9 September with the final guideline expected to be published by the end of 2015.

Before the consultation closed, two palliative care experts came to the SMC to give their opinions on the draft NICE guideline, and discussed issues such as:

• what is palliative care and how do we decide who needs it?
• what is the purpose of palliative care?
• what are the differences between this new draft NICE guideline and the Liverpool Care Pathway?
• how will we know if the new guideline works, if and when it is implemented?
• what research is currently being done into palliative care; is it enough?

Speakers:

Dr Jonathan Koffman, Senior Lecturer in Palliative Care, Cicely Saunders Institute, King’s College London

Dr Katherine Sleeman, Clinical Lecturer in Palliative Medicine, Cicely Saunders Institute, King’s College London