Abstract
The End of Life Care Strategy (EOLCS) was released by the Department of Health (DoH) in July 2008 to promote and reform the way dying persons are cared for by focusing on patient needs and preferences (DoH, 2008b).1 The policy is considered the first of its kind, both nationally and internationally, for systematically addressing end-of-life care (EOLC) in a way that is not intended to be disease-focused, using an integrated framework for the managed care of the dying via the EOLC pathway outlined in the document. The EOLCS draws on a history of palliative and hospice care within the United Kingdom (Ellis et al. in this volume; Seymour, 2012) and is one of the reasons the UK is considered to be world-leading in EOLC provision (EIU, 2010). This chapter builds on the previous chapter by describing the discourses used within this policy arena to frame death and dying as a problem that can be solved through the implementation of EOLC within a neoliberal, and yet nationally funded health service, framework.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Barclay, S. and Arthur, A. (2008) ‘Place of death: how much does it matter? The priority is to improve end-of-life care in all settings,’ The British Journal of General Practice: the Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 58(549), pp. 229–31.
Barclay, S. et al. (2011) ‘End-of-Life care conversations with heart failure patients: A systematic literature review and narrative synthesis,’ British Journal of General Practice, 61(582), pp. e49–62.
BBC (2010) ‘People “denied” die at home wish,’ BBC News. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11742166.
Bellier, I. (2005) ‘Anthropology of institutions and discourse analysis: Looking into interdisciplinarity,’ in R. Wodak and P. A. Chilton (eds) A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis Theory Methodology and Interdisciplinarity (Philadelphia: John Benjamins), pp. 243–67.
Borgstrom, E. (2014) Planning for Death? An Ethnographic Study of English End-of-Life Care (Cambridge: University of Cambridge). Available at: http://www.repositorycam.ac.uk/handle/1810/245560.
British Social Attitudes Survey (2012) Dying. Available at: http://www.dyingmatters.org/sites/default/files/BSA30_Full_Report.pdf.
Bunton, R., Nettleton, S. and Burrows, R. (1995) The Sociology of Health Promotion: Critical Analyses of Consumption, Lifestyle and Risk (London: Routledge).
Burt, J. et al. (2014) ‘Care plans and care planning in long-term conditions: a conceptual model,’ Primary Health Care Research and Development, 15(4), 342–54.
Carr, T. J., Hicks-Moore, S. and Montgomery, P. (2011) ‘What’s so big about the “little things”: A phenomenological inquiry into the meaning of spiritual care in dementia,’ Dementia, 10(3), pp. 399–414.
Cohen, J. and Deliens, L. (2012) ‘Applying a public health perspective to end of life care,’ in J. Cohen and L. Deliens (eds) A Public Health Perspective on End of Life Care, pp. 3–18.
Department of Health (2001) The NHS Cancer Plan (London: Crown).
Department of Health (2003) Choice, Responsiveness and Equity in the NHS and Social Care: A National Consultation (London: Crown).
Department of Health (2008a) ‘£268 m to improve end of life care for all’ (press release).
Department of Health (2008b) End of Life Care Strategy (London: Crown).
Department of Health (2008c) End of Life Care Strategy: Equality Impact Assessment (London: Crown).
Department of Health (2008d) End of Life Care Strategy: Executive Summary (London: Crown).
Department of Health (2008e) End of Life Care Strategy: Impact Assessment (London: Crown).
Department of Health (2008f) End of Life Care Strategy: What the End of Life Care Strategy Means for Patients and Carers (London: Crown).
Department of Health (2009) End of Life Care Strategy: First Annual Report (London: Crown).
The Department of Health (2010) Supporting Australians to Live Well at the End of Life: The National Palliative Care Strategy (London: Crown).
Department of Health (2011) End of Life Care Strategy: Third Annual Report (London: Crown).
Department of Health (2012) End of Life Care Strategy: Fourth Annual Report (London: Crown).
DHSSPSNI (2010) Living Matters, Dying Matters: A Palliative and End of Life Care Strategy for Adults in Northern Ireland (Belfast: DHSSPSNI).
Dixon, J. et al. (2015) Equity in the Provision of Palliative Care in the UK: Review of Evidence, London. Available at: www.pssru.ac.uk/publication-details.php?id=4962
Economist Intelligence Unit (2010) The Quality of Death: Ranking End-of-Life Care Across the World (Economist Intelligence Unit: London).
Ellershaw, J. and Murphy, D. (2011) ‘What Is the Liverpool Care Pathway for the dying patient (LCP)?,’ in J. Ellershaw and S. Wilkinson (eds) Care of the Dying: A Pathway to Excellence (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 15–32.
Fenton, K. and Maher, L. (2010) High Impact Actions for Nursing and Midwifery (Coventry: NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement).
Field, D. and Addington-Hall, J. (1999) ‘Extending specialist palliative care to all?,’ Social Science and Medicine, 48(9), 1271–80.
Fine, M. (2007) A Caring Society? Care and the Dilemmas of Human Service in the Twenty-First Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).
Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (London: Penguin).
Fontana, A. and Reid Keene, J. (2009) Death and Dying in America (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Francis, R. (2013) Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry (London: The Stationery Office). Available at: http://www.midstaffspublicinquiry.com/report.
Franks, P. J. et al. (2000) ‘The level of need for palliative care: a systematic review of the literature,’ Palliative Medicine, 14(2), 93–104.
Gershon, I. (2011) ‘Neoliberal Agency,’ Current Anthropology, 52(4), 537–55.
Glaser, B. G. and Strauss, A. L. (1965) Awareness of Dying (Chicago: Aldine).
Gomes, B., Calanzani, N. and Higginson, I.J. (2012) ‘Reversal of the British trends in place of death: time series analysis 2004–2010,’ Palliative Medicine, 26(2), 102–7.
Gomes, B. and Higginson, I.J. (2008) ‘Where people die (1974–2030): past trends, future projections and implications for care,’ Palliative Medicine, 22(1), 33–41.
Greener, I. (2009) ‘Towards a history of choice in UK health policy,’ Sociology of Health and Illness, 31(3), 309–24.
Haga, K. et al. (2012) ‘Identifying community based chronic heart failure patients in the last year of life: a comparison of the Gold Standards Framework Prognostic Indicator Guide and the Seattle Heart Failure Model,’ Heart (British Cardiac Society), 98(7), 579–83.
Ham, C. (2014) Reforming the NHS from Within: Beyond Hierarchy, Inspection and Markets (London: Kingsfund).
Hayes, A. et al. (2014) Pathways through Care at the End of Life (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers).
Higginson, I. J. (1999) ‘Evidence based palliative care,’ BMJ, 319(7208), 462–3.
Houben, C. H. et al. (2014) ‘Efficacy of Advance Care Planning: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,’ Journal of American Medical Directors Association, 15(7), 477–89.
House of Commons Health Committee (2008) NHS Next Stage Review (Volume 1) (London: House of Commons Health Committee).
Hughes-Hallett, T, Craft, A. and Davies, C. (2011) Palliative Care Funding Review: Funding the Right Care and Support for Everyone. Is accessed at http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cmg42/resources/non-guidance-guide-for-commissioners-on-end-of-life-care-for-adults-pdf
James Lind Alliance (2015) Palliative and End of Life Care Fop 10 Research Priorities. Available at: http://www.lindalliance.org/top-tens.asp.
Kaufman, S. R. (2005) … And a Time to Die: How American Hospitals Shape the End of Life (New York: A Lisa Drew Book/Scribner).
Kellehear, A. (2012) Compassionate Cities (London: Routledge).
Kingfisher, C. and Maskovsky, J. (2008) ‘Introduction: the Limits of Neoliberalism,’ Critique of Anthropology, 28, 115–26.
Leadbeater, C. and Garber, J. (2010) ‘To Allow People the Deaths They Want, End of Life Care Must Be Radically Fransformed …’: Dying for Change (London: Demos).
Leadership Alliance for the Care of Dying People (2014) One Chance to Get It Right: Improving People’s Experience of Care in the Last Few Days and Hours of Life. Available at: http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/323188/One_chance_to_get_it_right.pdf
Macaden, S. (2011) ‘Moving toward a national policy on palliative and end of life care,’ Indian Journal of Palliative Care, 17(Suppl), S42–S44.
McEvoy, L. and Duffy, A. (2008) ‘Holistic practice — a concept analysis,’ Nurse education in practice, 8(6), 412–9.
Mol, A. (2008) The Logic of Care: Health and the Problem of Patient Choice (Abingdon: Routledge).
Mullan, R. (2002) The Imaginary Time Bomb: Why an Ageing Population Is Not a Social Problem (New York: I.B.Tauris).
National Audit Office (2008) End of Life Care (London: National Audit Office).
National Economic Development Office/Training Agency (1989) Defusing the Demographic Time Bomb (London: National Economic Development Office/Training Agency).
NEOLCIN: National End of Life Care Intelligence Network (2013) What We Know Now 2013: New Information Collated by the National End of Life Care Intelligence Network (London: NEOLCIN).
NICE: National Institute for Clinical Evidence (2011) Quality Standard for End of Life Care (London: National Institute for Clinical Evidence).
Neuberger, J. et al. (2013) More Care, Less Pathway: A Review of the Liverpool Care Pathway (London: Independent Review of the Liverpool Care Pathway; Crown).
NHS England (2014a) Actions for End of Life Care: 2014–2016 (London: NHS England).
NHS England (2014b) Developing a New Approach to Palliative Care Funding: a First Draft for Discussion (London: NHS England).
Office of National Statistics (2014) National Survey of Bereaved People (VOICES), 2013 Statistical Bulletin. Available at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-healthl/national-survey-of-bereaved-people-voices-/2014/stb-voices-2014.html.
Owens, J. (2012) ‘Creating an impersonal NHS? Personalization, choice and the erosion of intimacy,’ Health Expectations, 18(1), 22–31.
Payne, S. and Grande, G. (2013) ‘Towards better support for family carers: a richer understanding,’ Palliative Medicine, 27(7), 579–80.
Payne, S. et al. (2012) ‘The perspectives of bereaved family carers on dying at home: the study protocol of “unpacking the home: family carers” reflections on dying at home,’ BMC Palliative Care, 11(1), 23.
Pratchett, L. (2004) ‘Local Autonomy, Local Democracy and the “New Localism”,’ Political Studies, 52(2), 358–75.
Randall, F. and Downie, R.S. (2010) End of Life Choices: Consensus and Controversy (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Richards, M. (2008) ‘The end of life care strategy: Promoting high quality care for all adults at the end of life,’ Presentation for End of Life Care Strategy. Available at: http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/136445/EOLC_strategy_presentation.pdf.
Riles, A. (2006) ‘Introduction: In Response,’ in A. Riles (ed.) Documents: Artifacts of Modern Knowledge (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press), pp. 1–38.
Riley, J. (2008) ‘A strategy for end of life care in the UK,’ BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 337(jul23_2), p. a943.
Saunders, C. (2006) Cicely Saunders: Selected Writings 1958–2004 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Scottish Government (2008) Living and Dying Well: A National Action Plan for Palliative and End of Life Care in Scotland (Edinburgh: Scottish Government).
Seymour, J. (1999) ‘Revisiting medicalisation and “natural” death,’ Social Science and Medicine, 49(5), 691–704.
Seymour, J. (2012) ‘Looking back, looking forward: the evolution of palliative and end-of-life care in England,’ Mortality, 17(1), 1–17.
Seymour, J., French, J., and Richardson, E. (2010) ‘Dying matters: Let’s talk about it,’ British Medical Journal, 341, 646–48.
Spijker, J. and MacInnes, J. (2013) ‘Population ageing: the timebomb that isn’t?’ BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 347(nov12_1), p. f6598.
TCEOLCPB: The Choice in End of Life Care Programme Board (2015) What’s Important to Me: A Review of Choice in End of Life Care (London: TCEOLCPB).
Thomas, K. and Lobo, B. (2011) Advance Care Planning in End of Life Care (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Timmermans, S. and Epstein, S. (2010) ‘A World of Standards but not a Standard World: Toward a Sociology of Standards and Standardization,’ Annual Review of Sociology, 36, 69–89.
Tonkiss, F. (1998). ‘Analysing Discourse,’ in C. Seale (ed) Researching Society and Culture (London: Sage), pp. 245–60.
Veerbeek, L. et al. (2008) ‘The effect of the Liverpool Care Pathway for the dying: a multi-centre study,’ Palliative Medicine, 22(2), 145–51.
Vincent, J., Philipson, C. and Downs, M. (2006) The Futures of Old Age (Oxford: SAGE Publications).
Walters, G. (2004) ‘Is there such a thing as a good death?’ Palliative Medicine, 18, 404–8.
Wee, B. (2014) Actions for End of Life Care: 2014–2015 (London).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 Erica Borgstrom
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Borgstrom, E. (2016). National End-of-Life Care Policy in the English Context: The Problem and Solution to Death and Dying. In: Foster, L., Woodthorpe, K. (eds) Death and Social Policy in Challenging Times. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137484901_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137484901_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-55799-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-48490-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)