Earlier this year, the region’s NHS launched Deciding right, the UK’s very first attempt to establish a fully integrated approach to making care decisions in advance – including CPR decisions and the option to refuse consent for resuscitation, for people of all ages.

Deciding right is currently being rolled out across north east NHS hospitals, with paramedics and in other NHS care settings and in hundreds of nursing homes, care homes and hospices across the region.

Crucially, for the very first time, Deciding right provides common regional documentation, including one standard DNACPR form, for use in any north east care setting, which will be easily recognisable by all health and social care professionals and have the legal authority to ensure patients’ wishes are followed right at the very end of life.

Developed by doctors, nurses, social care professionals, as well as patients and carers through the north east NHS clinical network, Deciding right creates one standard region wide process to help people make shared healthcare decisions in advance. It will help patients of all ages who do not have capacity to make their own choices, or who may lose capacity for making choices in the future.

Commenting on today’s NCEPOD report, Dr Elizabeth Kendrick, chair of the end of life clinical innovation team in the north east and a member of the ‘Commission on dignity in care for older people’, said:

“We have recognised for a long time in the north east that more needs to be done to help both healthcare professionals and patients and their families, to make informed decisions about end of life care, including whether or not they wish to be resuscitated.

“Deciding right is the result of many years of collaborative work and sets out clear principles, and CPR documentation, for all healthcare organisations and professionals in the north east to follow, focusing decisions on individual patient needs and wishes, rather than organisational policies and procedures.

“Making sure that individuals’ wishes are followed right at the very end of life is central to dignified care and through Deciding right we hope to make this a reality for north east people, whether they wish to die at home, in a hospice or indeed a hospital setting.”

Deciding right follows the UK’s first ever charter to talk about death and dying, ‘A Good Death’, which was launched in the north east in October 2009 and put the region on the map nationally for its innovative work on end of life care.

ENDS

Media contact:
Liz Davies – NHS North East
0191 210 6482 / 07787278511
liz.davies@northeast.nhs.uk

National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD)
Full report and press release: http://www.ncepod.org.uk/

About Deciding right
Based on the Mental Capacity Act and latest national guidelines, Deciding right provides a set of principles for all health organisations and professionals in the north east to follow. It aims to provide dignity in death by:

• identifying the triggers for making care decisions in advance
• empowering people to make their own care preferences known to all
• ensuring care decisions are patient centred rather than organisation focused and that they are followed
• ensuring that care decisions made in advance can be legally binding where appropriate
• ensuring those without capacity for making their own decisions have these made in their best interests
• facilitating shared decision making between patients, carers and professionals
• providing standardised documents for use in any care setting
• minimising the chance of any unnecessary or unwanted treatment

A full copy of Deciding right is available from:
http://www.theclinicalnetwork.org/end-of-life-care---the-clinical-network/decidingright