Advance care planning (ACP) is a process of reflection and communication in which a person with decision making capacity is able to express his/her wishes regarding preferences and wishes for their end of life care. The End of life strategy ( 2008) highlights the need for proactive guidance in exploring a person’s preferences and wishes at an early stage within life limiting illness, resulting in the potential of unnecessary and unwanted crisis interventions being minimised. The newly formed, three clinical commissioning groups (CCG’S) for Worcestershire have acknowledged ACP as a priority and commissioned a countywide project, under the auspices of the End of Life and Palliative Care network for Worcestershire the role out and implementation of the new countywide ACP documents, this is seen as critical components of the quality improvement process in health and social care (Help the Hospices,2012).

A 12 month project overseen by an ACP Project Manager and hosted in collaboration with St Richard’s Hospice will see the Implementation of a training and awareness programme across all health and social care providers being undertaken. This is to enable collaborative countywide working and embed the ACP documents in to practice. Training and awareness will be developed for the workforce to enable underpinning knowledge and skills required in supporting patients through ACP discussions.

Enabling:

• Patient choice regarding preference and wishes as end of life approaches

• Proactive guidance for preferred place of care

• Minimise crisis admission as end of life approaches

A skilled workforce across health and social care will enable a consistent approach to advance care planning countrywide ensuring a patient’s wishes and preferences are elicited, documented and shared.

Integrated care at end of life within the changing health and social care policy landscape will be delivered in line with the recommendations from, Preparing for the future: key operating principles (Help the Hospice,2012).