Palliative and End of Life Care Standard
People at or near the end of life should receive personalised care that reflects their wishes and priorities, improving their experience and supporting sustainable NHS services. The Palliative and End of Life Care Standard ensures professionals and individuals have the right information to support decision making and aligns with the  Universal Principles for Advance Care Planning.
This standard should be used to support the standardised recording of information related to palliative care and end of life forming the core content of information to be held in electronic palliative care co-ordination systems (EPaCCS).
Current release
From 01 January 2026, this standard will be owned and managed by NHS England and is made available for reuse or amendment under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (OGL 3.0). A review of the ongoing requirement for this standard will be undertaken by NHS England. Details on this and any update to the standard will be published on the NHS Standards Directory. If you have any questions or feedback relating to this standard, please email: england.standards.assurance@nhs.net.
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About this standard
People with a palliative or life-limiting illness at any age want their health and care team to know and respect their care needs and wishes. People also want everyone involved in their care, including family and carers, to have access to information to help them achieve the treatment and care that’s right for them at the end of life. The standard has been developed to ensure key information is collected and shared in a way that: 
- Keeps the patient at the centre of decision-making
- Ensures the care team has access to appropriate information to support decision-making
- Promotes the sharing of information held in records in different systems
- Is standardised across health and care (so it is easy to share across organisational and geographical boundaries)
A person’s palliative and end of life care plan should be designed to be reviewed and updated as their condition changes in line with their wishes and preferences, as discussed with professionals and carers in line with the Universal Principles for advance care planning.
A person’s palliative and end of life care plan should ideally form part of their personalised care plan so that clinicians have a holistic view of the individual, the conditions for which they are being treated, and their needs and preferences as they near the end of their life. If someone doesn’t already have a generalised care plan recorded electronically, you can still create an end of life plan for them.
The benefits of using the standard
The standard will help health and care professionals access information quickly, knowing it can be trusted as a single source of truth, when making key decisions about a person’s care.Â
When adopted, the standard also ensures that a person’s wishes and needs, as they near the end of life, can be easily shared wherever they are and with whoever is providing their care.
Summary table
The Palliative and End of Life Care Information Standard comprises the following main sections:
Main sections of the standard | |
|---|---|
Involvement in advance care planning | Details of the person, family and carers involvement in advance care planning. |
End of life care plans | Type of end of life care plan, which contains information about the person’s wishes and preferences, ceilings of treatment, and emergency care and treatment plans.   |
Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) decision | CPR Decision includes whether a decision has been made, who made it and the date of the decision plus where any documentation can be found. |
Estimated prognosis | Details of estimated prognosis and life expectancy. |
Person is on palliative care register | Coded data. |
Anticipatory medicine | Availability and location of medicine or equipment. |
Preferred place of death | Place the person has identified as their preferred place to die. |
Palliative care financial support | Details of financial support forms/claims the clinician has informed to person about or helped to complete. |
The standard draws upon components of other PRSB standards, shown in the table below.
Content from other standards | |
|---|---|
Core Information Standard | Information based on the Core Information Standard that is routinely collected in a person’s care record including person demographics, GP practice and so forth. |
About Me Standard | Information that the person considers important to share with people caring and supporting them and including what matters to them (their needs, concerns preferences and wishes) . |
Personalised Care and Support Plan Standard | Developed with the person as a single plan to reflect their holistic needs and the goals and actions to support those needs . |
Case study
PRSB has produced a short podcast illustrating the importance of personalised care that reflects the person’s wishes and priorities.
