Safety recommendation
HSIB recommends that NHS England commissions palliative and end of life care career pathways, ensuring that they include staff from the allied health professions, in order to build specialist workforce capacity.
Response:
Work is being undertaken by NHS England to develop a allied health professional (AHP) career pathway that includes developmental education and training programmes. Palliative and end of life care will be built into these as possible, AHPs work across many areas and need this knowledge and skill, specialist roles require access to broad multiprofessional palliative care training and also require barriers to practice (e.g. prescribing) to be revised. The barrier to workforce development is the resource to develop training programmes, and to train, supervise and employ staff in these roles.
A multi-professional advanced practice training pathway for adult end of life care has been developed and is in the process of seeking an implementation partner, this will include the allied health professions. However, funding for advanced practice training roles and posts on qualification is a challenge.
Response received on 20 October 2023 and updated on 29 July 2024.