End of Life Care Quality Assessment (ELCQuA) Tool
Quality is an important focus for every organisation involved in end of life care. Whether you are commissioning or providing services, you need to be able to measure progress in delivering care, monitor quality in a systematic way and share best practice across your locality.
The ELCQuA online self-assessment tool has been developed by the National End of Life Care Intelligence Network, to help commissioners and providers of end of life care monitor the quality of services.
Progress can be assessed against a set of core measures that are structured around the NICE Quality Standard for end of life care for adults (2011). Care Quality Commission regulations, NHS, social care and public health outcomes frameworks and the National Cancer Peer Review Programme’s Specialist Palliative Care Measures. The tool links to the NHS Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention Challenge (QIPP), and the metrics for the NHS Improving Quality’s Transforming End of Life Care in Acute Hospitals (2012).
The tool is hosted on the ELCQuA website, which includes a list of Before you begin and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
Who uses ELCQuA?
If you work for an organisation that provides or commissions end of life care in England, you can request access to the system. The tool is specifically aimed at the following organisations:
- Commissioners
- Local Authorities
- Social care services
- Primary care services
- Acute hospitals
- Community services including community hospitals
- Care homes
- Domiciliary services
- Hospices
- Specialist palliative care community services
- Ambulance services
- Out of hours services
Relevant measures are specified for each organisation type.
Why use ELCQuA?
ELCQuA is completely free and offers users the following key features and benefits:
- Action planning and progress monitoring in end of life care
- Ability to hold evidence on current services in one place
- Investment planning support
- Simple traffic light assessments (red, amber, green)
- Helps with assessment against the CQC end of life care prompts
- Flexible analysis
- Reporting of progress
- Real-time updates
- Mechanism for sharing good practice
- Secure data
- Access from anywhere that has an internet connection
- User friendly and easy to update
- Personalised to each user
- Completely free to users!
How to register your organisation
All organisations wishing to use ELCQuA are required to register and to identify a lead for end of life care. Click to registration link. The lead person will be asked to provide a list of users from their organisation and to specify the type of access required for each person (read only OR read and write access). The nominated end of life care lead will be asked to approve any registration requests from others not included on their list.
How to register as a user
All users are required to register individually. Click to registration link. You will be able to register as a user if:
- your organisation is already registered
- your request is approved by the nominated end of life care lead in your organisation.
Support
There is a help function on each page to support users as well as the FAQs. Feedback is welcome.
You can contact us at neolcin at phe dot gov.uk link [email protected]
or telephone 0116 295 7666.
Related resources
NICE Quality Standard for End of Life Care for Adults (2011)
NICE Guide for commissioners on end of life care for adults
The Commissioning Person Centred End of Life Care Toolkit
Transforming end of life care in acute hospitals
National Cancer Peer Review Programme Manual for Cancer Service: Specialist Palliative Care Measures
Care Quality Commission Regulations
Social Care Framework for end of Life Care
End of Life Care Profiles