Member
Peredur Owen Griffiths South Wales East
WQ85695 (e) Tabled on 05/07/2022

Will the Minister give assurances that the new End of Life Care Programme Board will give consideration to harnessing and supporting networks in local communities, bereavement support for loved ones, and funding palliative and end of life care research?

Answered by Minister for Health and Social Services | Answered on 15/07/2022

The new National Programme Board for Palliative and End of Life Care took over responsibility for palliative and end of life care in Wales from the End of Life Care Board on 1st July 2022. The remit of the National Programme Board is to look at the wider spectrum of generic and specialist end of life care from diagnosis through to the terminal phase, and into bereavement.  As such it will take a holistic approach to end of life care and support going forward, enabling and building on existing community support networks to ensure palliative and end of life care services are sensitive to the needs of the people in local communities.  

The remit of the National Programme Board will be supported by the significant investments in bereavement services made during and since the pandemic, including:

  • A £3m Bereavement Support Grant to 21 third sector organisations over the three-year period 2021-24.
  • An additional £420k per year over the next two years (2022-24) to help Health Boards with bereavement co-ordination, and implementation of the bereavement pathways and care standards.
  • £479,000 since 2020 to Cruse Bereavement Care Cymru to transform national and local bereavement services via single point of access ‘Bereavement Hub’.

From a research perspective, the National Programme Board will work in collaboration with research partners, including Health and Care Research Wales (HCRW) and the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Centre, hosted by Cardiff University. 

Through Health and Care Research Wales, funding opportunities for research are available for adult and paediatric palliative and end of life care to improve quality of life, influence care, and make the best use of resources.

HCRW run several funding schemes to which researchers with an interest in palliative and end of life care research are welcome to apply, and they part fund the Cancer Research Strategy for Wales, of which palliative care is one of the six priority areas.

The Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Centre has contributed to a growing programme of palliative care research studies, resulting in over £11m in external funding and increased patient recruitment, up from four patients a year to over 160 a year.