To ask the Minister of Health to detail the work he has undertaken to progress the actions relating to palliative care as set out in the Cancer Strategy.

The Cancer Strategy for Northern Ireland contains three actions that relate to palliative care. The Palliative Care in Partnership Programme, which is co-led by the Department’s Strategic Planning and Performance Group and the Public Health Agency, is leading the work to progress these actions.

The Partnership brings together a wide range of stakeholders from across the statutory, independent and voluntary and community sectors, including hospices, as well as service users, to support the development and implementation of services for people who are living with palliative and end of life care needs and those important to them.

The work to help deliver the palliative care actions in the Cancer Strategy will continue to be taken forward as part of the Palliative Care in Partnership’s workplan for 2023-26 which focuses on 4 priority areas:

Early identification of and timely intervention for people with palliative care needs;

Co-ordination & Quality Improvement in palliative care services;

Palliative care education and training; and

A public health approach to palliative care.

Key areas that are being taken forward by the Palliative Care in Partnership Programme to support the palliative care actions in the Cancer Strategy include:

Development of Regional Syringe Pump Guidance, education and documentation to standardise processes, education and documentation relating to syringe pump usage across all care settings;

Regional subscription to the Palliative Care Formulary has been put in place to provide instant access on a 24/7 basis to medication support for 250 clinicians caring for end of life and palliative care patients;

A Quality Improvement project with District Nursing to support the continued development of the Palliative Care Keyworker role;

Improving access to Out of Hours specialist palliative care advice available to support generalist HSC professionals caring for palliative care patients in the out of hours period; and

Scoping and costing options for moving to a 7-day Specialist Palliative Care Nursing service in Northern Ireland.