The spectrum of children’s palliative care needs-a useful tool?

Abstract

Paediatric palliative care is characterised by the holistic care provided to children living with life-limiting and life threatening conditions, ranging from providing symptom control to bereavement support. Due to the nature of the conditions many of these children have, health care professionals (HCPs) can find it difficult to recognise when a child would benefit from palliative care input. The Spectrum of Children’s Palliative Care Needs (SCPCN) aims to tackle this problem by encouraging clinicians to consider palliative care involvement if a child has a reduced life expectancy. The results obtained demonstrate that currently, clinicians are using the SCPCN to help predict the life expectancy of children with life-limiting conditions and further improvements can be made to ensure the SCPCN is being used to maximum benefit; for example, introducing regular review of the caseload using the SCPCN could optimise the care being provided. This, in turn, will allow more timely recognition of deterioration of health in this population of children and therefore improve end of life care.