APM Professional Guidelines

Appraisal Guidance for Consultants and SAS Doctors in Specialist Palliative Medicine

Please note that this guidance is currently under review by the APM Clinical Quality Committee.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges now endorses the writing of outpatient letters directly to the patient and copying them to relevant health care professionals. This is quite a change from the tradition of writing to the HCP and copying patients. This change is in line with patient empowerment and reducing paternalism, Good Medical Practice from the GMC and the NHS Constitution. In clinical trials it was well received by patients and doctors and it improved patient centred communication.

What is your unit doing and how applicable to palliative care? Do you have experience of working this way that you can share with the membership. The APM welcomes comments on this, use the ‘Please write to me’ pdf here.

National Institute of Health and Care Excellence [2017]
• List of recommendations for adults entering the last days of life
• Includes those dying from chronic or acute diseases
• Includes recognition of dying, decision –making and symptom control
• Section on assisted hydration
• Pharmacological management of symptoms has specific recommendations for certain problems and refers to local guidance for others
• Highlights areas of research needed to provide good quality evidence
click here

NICE End of Life Resources

click here

Full guidance can be located here

A national framework for local action [2021-2026].
Broad partnership of national organisations with commitment to improving end of life care in England. Present overarching vision and six ambitions to use as a framework for local action.
• Each person is seen as individual
• Fair access to care
• Maximising comfort and wellbeing
• Care is coordinated
• All staff are prepared to care
• Each community is prepared to help
• The document presents a broad and far-reaching vision including changes in the publics’ perception of dying.
click here

Royal College of Physicians [2015]
• Audit of case notes of all deaths in hospitals over 1-month period
• Assessed identification of dying, communication, needs assessment and symptom control
click here

Improving people’s experience of care in the last few days and hours of life. The Leadership Alliance for the Care of Dying People. London: LACDP. Priorities of care for dying [2014]
• Presents five priorities of care for people dying in coming days
• Provides framework for local guidelines and follows recommendations of Neuberger review of Liverpool Care Pathway
• One chance to get it right: One year on report [2015]. An overview on commitments made in in previous report-system-wide response to the Independent review of the Liverpool Care Pathway click here

UKASCCs vision is to ‘promote excellence in the care of all those directly and indirectly affected by cancer in all four countries of the UK’, by inspiring the workforce through the support of professionals in their research, practice and learning and development. We work at local, regional, and national levels to ensure that UKASCC is a voice for supportive care in cancer across the UK. We also aspire to be influential at European and global levels. By engaging with the educational and developmental needs of our members we will also play an advisory role in the development of cancer guidelines and policy. We intend to be the premier British networking organisation for the multidisciplinary teams involved in delivering Supportive Oncology.