The potential of integrated multi-agency care pathways for children.
In 2004, a Framework for the Development of Integrated Multi-agency Care Pathways for Children with Life-Threatening and Life-Limiting Conditions, funded by the Department of Health, was developed by a working party. It included the Association for Children with Life-Threatening or Terminal Conditions and their Families, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. This article will identify the need for this framework and its potential to transform the delivery of palliative care services to overcome present inequalities based on condition and geography that currently beset children with these conditions and their families. It will show how the three stages of the pathway (diagnosis or recognition, living with a condition, and end of life and bereavement) follow the patient's journey and complement guidance set out in the Children's National Service Framework (2004) for multi-agency assessments, protocols and standards to ensure high-quality coordinated care and services. It concludes with the need to evaluate the effectiveness of pathways that may develop from this initiative through audit and research.
Davies
Ruth
R
School of Health Science, University of Wales, Swansea.
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D001293:Attitude to Death; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001601:Bereavement; D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D002985:Clinical Protocols; D003266:Continuity of Patient Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D019091:Critical Pathways / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D008485:Medical Audit; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010347:Patient Care Planning / Q000458:organization & administration; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic