Route-to-Success-Social-Work

The route to success
in end of life care –
achieving quality for
social work

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Contents
Foreword

4

About this guide

5

Section 1
Introduction

6



Social work’s core values and skills for end of life care

8



The current challenge

9

Section 2


Social work across the end of life care pathway

10



Step 1: Discussion as the end of life approaches

14



Step 2: Assessment, care planning and review

18



Step 3: Co-ordination of care

22



Step 4: Delivering high quality care in different settings

26



Step 5: Care in the last days of life

30



Step 6: Care after death

34

Key messages

38

References

39

Further resources

40

Glossary

42

Acknowledgements

43

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Foreword

How to live well is an ancient question which most
of us consider from time to time, even if only in
our more reflective moments. But how to die well
is a question that most of us are much less inclined
to face, despite – or perhaps because of – the
inevitability of death.
We have the good fortune to live in a society in which
people are living longer, healthier lives. The number of over85s is expected to double over the next 20 years. But, as
society ages, the end of life will be accompanied by lengthier
periods of frailty and illness, and levels of dementia will
continue to rise.
Social workers have an important role in helping people
to die well and with dignity. They have the practical and
emotional understanding to raise the issue honestly and
talk about it with delicacy and tact. They support vulnerable
people at critical times in their lives, so it is logical that they
should do so at this time, the most critical of all.
Most people, if asked early enough, say they would prefer to
die at home. Yet the truth is that more than 53% of people
end up dying in hospital, and this figure rises to 70% for the
most socially deprived...