Publication - Strategy/plan
Palliative care strategy: Palliative Care Matters for All
We are committed to ensuring that everyone who needs it can access well-coordinated, timely and high-quality palliative care, care around dying and bereavement support based on what matters to them. Our draft strategy sets out our approach to achieving this.
Annex A: Terms Used in This Strategy
| Allied Health Professionals (AHP) | These healthcare staff include physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dietitians, speech and language therapists, radiographers, paramedics, podiatrists, art therapists, drama therapists and music therapists. |
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| Care around dying | Care around dying means whole person care for an adult or child who is dying, and in the last hours, days or weeks of their life; care after their death; and support with loss and grief for families and carers throughout this time and when they are bereaved. |
| Compassionate communities | Compassionate communities is a broad term that includes people's own networks of family, friends, neighbours, work colleagues and people they meet in daily life, plus support from communities we live in and are part of. Compassionate communities invest in and promote individual action, group strategies or societal structures or policies that prevent or reduce suffering resulting from experiences of serious illness, death, dying and loss; promoting health and wellbeing, community support and empowerment of community members affected by such experiences; and acknowledge these experiences as natural parts of daily life. |
| Family and carers | By family and carers, we mean anyone who is close or important to an adult or child, including variable social networks of family, friends and neighbours who are central to the life and care of the adult or child. |
| Future care planning | Future care planning is about supporting adults and children, their families and carers, to think and plan ahead for changes in their life, health and care. |
| General palliative care | Palliative care for adults or children that is provided by many different health and social care staff as part of their usual care for people with palliative care needs, and by staff and teams who are specialists in other fields. |
| Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) | HSCPs are organisations formed to integrate services provided by Health Boards and Local Authorities/ Councils in Scotland. Each partnership is jointly run by the NHS and local authority. HSCPs are directed by their area IJBs (see below). |
| Independent Hospice | Independent hospices are key delivery partners and centres of excellence for specialist palliative care and wider holistic care and support delivered by staff and volunteers within the hospice building, at home or in a care home and, in some cases, specialist services in local hospitals and other places of care. Some units named "Hospice" are not run by specialist palliative care services, but may be staffed in different ways. For example, through primary care, elderly medicine or other services. |
| Integration Authority | Integration Authorities represent partnerships between Local Authorities and Health Boards for delivering health and social care services and integration of budgets. |
| Integration Joint Board (IJB) | IJBs are a type of Integration Authority (see above) and are responsible for the planning and commissioning of health and social care services for their areas. |
| Serious health condition (children) | The term serious health condition is used as a broad term for a wide range of illnesses and health conditions that mean a baby, child or young person can benefit from palliative care and is likely to live for a shorter time, but how long an individual child lives can be very variable. |
| Life-threatening illness | When an adult or child has a life-threatening illness, we mean they will not recover and may die, although could improve for a short time. |
| Multi-disciplinary Teams | Multi-disciplinary teams are groups of staff made up of different professional groups in health and social care who work together to provide care and support for adults or children, as well as their families and carers. |
| Palliative care for adults | Palliative care is holistic care that prevents and relieves suffering through the early identification, assessment and management of pain and other problems – whether physical, mental health, social or spiritual. |
| Palliative care for children and young people | Palliative care for children and young people is an active and total approach to care, from the point of diagnosis or recognition throughout the child's life. It includes physical, emotional, social and spiritual elements, and focuses on enhanced quality of life for the child or young person and support for their family. |
| Serious illness (adults) | A serious illness is an illness which causes an adult's health to fluctuate over months or years, but to get worse over time. Some people have more than one serious illness. |
| Specialist Palliative Care Unit | An NHS inpatient unit or beds where adults are cared for by specialists in palliative care. Specialist palliative care units may provide a range of services and be similar to an independent hospice. |
| Specialist Palliative Care Service (adult or children) | A service which has a single operational management structure that provides a range of specialist services delivered by staff who are experts in palliative care and have advanced training and experience in palliative care. |
Contact
Email: Palliativecareteam@gov.scot
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