Benchmarking services
How to benchmark palliative and end of life care services for children and young people against the Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care and England-wide guidance and standards.
ICBs can take the following actions:
- Carry out an Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care self-assessment to identify progress and gaps against the six ambitions commitments. We recommend that this involves children, young people and families with lived experience of palliative and end of life care.
- Use the South West Children’s Palliative Care Network mapping benchmarking tool for children and young people’s palliative and end of life care; it has been developed to combine the ambitions with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to focus on children and young people.
- Evaluate the extent to which any existing children and young people’s palliative and end of life care service specification which they have in place aligns with the Children and Young People’s Palliative and End of Life Care National Service Specification.
- Assess the extent to which their Equalities and Health Inequalities Impact Assessment (EHIA) and action plan includes children, young people and their families.
- Assess the inspection reports and ratings awarded to children and young people’s palliative and end of life care service by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). This includes children’s hospice services and end of life care services for children provided by NHS trusts.
- Use the NICE quality standard service improvement template with Quality Standard QS160 End of Life Care for Infants, Children and Young People. This helps providers make an initial assessment of their service compared with a selection of quality statements. This tool is updated monthly to include new quality standards.
- Use the baseline assessment tool provided with NICE guideline [NG61] End of Life Care for Infants, Children and Young People with Life-Limiting Conditions: Planning and Management.
- Use Together for Short Lives’ Standards Framework, which includes an associated self-assessment audit tool.