Families Given Choice Of Home Care
November 29th 2005
Families should have more support for keeping seriously ill children at home, according to a new government guide. 
Health services are being instructed to offer families more choice, including a range of palliative care services.
The Department of Health guide calls for nurses to lead community services that can help spare families constant travel to hospital.
The guide points out that children with life-threatening conditions now live longer than in the past and have complex health needs.
It says their care should fit with their continued education and personal development.
The department said the new guidelines aimed to help strengthen the hospice movement - and announced its backing for a new guide to establishing children’s hospices produced by the Association of Children’s Hospices.
ACH chief executive Barbara Gelb said: "ACH welcomes the publication of this new palliative care guide. This is an important step forward for the children’s hospice movement and those organisations providing children’s palliative care."
Professor Sir Alan Craft, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: "This will aid commissioners in their duty to bring a range of providers together, to create a seamless network for this vulnerable group of children, young people and families."
Care Services Minister Liam Byrne said: "Very ill children who need palliative care deserve much more choice about the way they receive that care.
"Many families tell us they want more care at home, so we’re asking the NHS to change. If a child wants to stay at home, they should be allowed to do so."
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