Report scope

This report is not intended to cover the whole topic of death and dying in detail but focuses instead on the inequalities of the care and support people receive as they approach the end of their lives. It was important from the beginning that we were clear about what was in and what was outside of scope for the report. This enabled us to remain focused on the outcomes we were trying to achieve and helped to prevent 'mission creep'. The three main decisions made on scope were as follows:

Input from supporting organisations, not service users

As Healthwatch have recently gathered local insight from people experiencing end-of-life care or bereavement support as service users, we felt it would be most useful to build on this insight by talking to representatives from organisations supporting those service users. Due to time constraints, we were unable to include every relevant organisation, however there was good representation across all parts of the system.

Deaths of adults aged 18 and over

The team did not exclude any conversations about the death of a child as part of their focus groups. However, child deaths are much less common than adult deaths, and the experience and impact may feel very different. This could lead to a different type of support being needed, and it was vital that the project team was sensitive to this.

Expected deaths

The main purpose of this report was to look at the processes in place to support people as they approach the end of their lives, rather than how to prevent deaths. It was felt the main focus should be on 'expected' deaths (resulting from the deterioration in a patient's health status due to a progressive disease), rather than deaths from external factors or suicide. However, the team did not exclude conversations about suicide or sudden, unexpected deaths. Any findings specifically relating to death by suicide will be shared with the Kirklees Suicide Prevention Action Group.