Speeches by Kinnock.

“Can I ask Dr Mitchell to add anything extra on the advance care planning question, because I think there may be more to say on that?”

“We have to do it, and the point is that we are currently living in a world where the problem the system is facing, and one of the reasons we have such a huge elective backlog, is because we haven’t made primary and community care work as effectively as they should. We have to prevent avoidable admissions. Far too many …”

“I think there are two issues. One is that we do not have enough people on advance care plans. That comes back to the identification point: 345,000 people are on the palliative care register; we want there to be more. You are not going to get an advance care plan until you are on the register, so the first step is to ge…”

“We have the “Universal Principles for Advance Care Planning”, published in 2022, which focus on the importance of providing opportunities for a person and their family or carers to engage in meaningful discussions, led by the person concerned, that consider the person’s priorities and preferences, including place of ca…”

“Yes.”

“I do not think it is necessarily about the quantum. If you look right across Government, we spend about £22 billion on people in the last year of their life. About £5 billion of that is on social security, about £5 billion is on adult social care, and the remaining £12 billion or so is in the healthcare side of palliat…”

“Absolutely. That is what the modern service framework will be about—and our approach to strategic commissioning, because strategic commissioning will not work unless you are using the data properly. It is a population health management approach, and you cannot develop a strategy unless you really have that data. On dat…”

“The palliative care dashboard. I would be very happy to share more information about the dashboard with the Committee. I might ask Dr Mitchell to talk a bit about that, as she is very much leading on the clinical side. The dashboard is a powerful tool because it provides an ICB-by-ICB breakdown; looks at how many peopl…”

“I do not want to make too much of a political point here. The reality is that when we came into office in July 2024, I looked across every aspect of my portfolio—general practice, pharmacy, dentistry, palliative and end-of-life care, adult social care—and, frankly, it was a pretty chaotic disaster across every aspect o…”

“I think there are tools that are not being used properly.”

“Thank you very much, Chair. If I could make a very brief statement, which has some new information that I think the Committee might find useful. I thank the Committee and its independent expert panel for their excellent report. Palliative and end-of-life care plays an essential part in our health and care system, and i…”

“I have not yet done the modelling of what kind of workforce would be required to staff that telephone line, but it would be a single central number. One assumes that it would not have enormous staffing issues. Its round-the-clock nature would require some thought to make sure we staff it properly. There is no point in …”

“Early identification is vital. I am pleased to see that, over the last year or so, we have had quite a good increase in the number of people on the palliative care register—I think it has gone up from 0.46% to 0.55% of the population. About 1% of the population dies every year—approximately half a million people—and th…”

“Yes, absolutely. I am very happy to do so.”

“The workforce piece is complex because so many people are involved in palliative and end-of-life care, such as GPs, district nurses and specialist doctors.”

“If we get the modern service framework published by the autumn, then we would be looking at implementation in 2027.”

“I think it is about 24%.”

“Hospice UK has done a report, and it is clear that having that 24/7 telephone line would be extremely beneficial. Coverage is not where it should be, so that is something we are going to be looking at in the modern service framework.”

“Yes.”

“That is going to be one of the key points in our modern service framework. We want to set national standards and goals, for example, by looking at having a 24/7 telephone line available everywhere in England at least.”