Due to launch “within the next 12 months”, the standards will offer pharmacy teams across the UK access to a free framework to help them “self-assess and continuously improve their end-of-life and bereavement care for patients and carers”, the RPS announced earlier this week (June 8).
Marie Curie has already worked with the Royal College of GPs to create the ‘Daffodil Standards’, which were released in 2019 to support general practices and care homes improve the quality of palliative and end-of-life care they deliver to patients.
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Research commissioned by Marie Curie, the results of which were published in its 2021 Better End of Life Report, revealed that three quarters of bereaved carers said their loved one did not get all the care and support they needed.
Meanwhile, almost two thirds of bereaved carers also said their loved one's pain was not fully managed.
RPS to set up professional standard steering group
To help drive work on the standards forwards, the RPS will shortly establish a steering group.
“The group will consist of community pharmacy experts, experts within the field of palliative and end-of-life care, lay members, and healthcare professionals who interact with community pharmacy,” it said.
For individuals interested in the project, there will also be an opportunity “to help shape the work” through a wider reference group.
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Elen Jones, director lead for palliative care work at the RPS, said: “The RPS has a long-term commitment, striving to ensure that people living with life-limiting conditions who are approaching the end of life have timely access to medicines and clinical support from a skilled pharmacy team.”
The development of the Daffodil Standards with Marie Curie will support pharmacy teams “to undertake simple quality improvement measures and build upon the care they already provide to this group of patients and carers”, she added.
Meanwhile, Darrell Baker, chair of the Daffodil Standards steering group, said that community pharmacy teams have a “crucial role to play in supporting patients at the end of life and their families”, and patients “should expect to experience high quality, coordinated care”.
