Written question WQ99554

The shift towards more care being delivered in primary and community settings is central to improving outcomes and experiences for people living with a terminal illness. Community-based care should be the default model of care by design, not by exception, enabling people to receive proactive, coordinated support closer to home and in familiar surroundings wherever possible. Through the Community by Design Transformation Programme, NHS Wales must increasingly provide multidisciplinary care that brings together primary care, community nursing, specialist palliative care, social care and wider support services around the needs of the individual.

This approach helps to ensure earlier identification of palliative care needs, better care planning, improved coordination between services, and greater choice and control for individuals and their families. It will also help to reduce avoidable conveyance to, and admission into, hospital, ensuring that specialist hospital care is used when it is needed while more care is delivered in community settings where this is clinically appropriate and aligned with a person's wishes.

We remain committed to strengthening palliative and end-of-life care services as part of this wider transformation. To support this, we are currently refreshing the Quality Statement for Palliative and End-of-Life Care to reflect learning, emerging priorities and the continued need to improve equity, quality and outcomes across Wales. We aim to publish the refreshed Quality Statement in the Autumn.

Through these actions, we will continue to work with NHS organisations, hospices and other partners to ensure people living with a terminal illness receive the care, support and dignity they deserve.