Adult Community Specialist Palliative Care in North West London update: February 2026

We know that needing palliative or end of life care can be an difficult and uncertain time for people and their families. Clear information, timely support and knowing where to turn can make a real difference.

This second update sets out how adult specialist palliative and end-of-life care is improving across North West London, what support is already in place, and what further changes are coming.

Since 2021, we have been working closely with residents, families, clinicians, hospices and community groups to understand what really matters when people need specialist palliative and end‑of‑life care.

Together, we co‑developed a new model of care that is compassionate, fair and built around people’s needs. It supports the national ambition for personalised, high‑quality end‑of‑life care and reflects the priorities and experiences shared during extensive engagement and the public consultation between November 2024 and February 2025.

Thanks to additional funding secured in July 2025, we began rolling out improvements from October 2025 with an expectation all improvements will be in place by October 2027. Many people across North West London are already benefiting from better access, longer service hours and strengthened support.

This update is part of an open approach to sharing progress, and we will continue to provide regular updates as services develop.

Progress since our last update:

• Providers are continuing to recruit for a larger specialist palliative care workforce to expand operating hours for community teams to 8am-8pm, 7 days a week. Some providers are creating development roles to further expand the workforce.
• We are working through the technical requirements to set up a single 24/7 telephone advice line for north west London, with calls routed in via NHS 111. The advice line will provide access to 24/7 telephone advice for palliative care, for known and unknown patients.
• We are rolling out new data collection methods to provide more meaningful information to better understand service use and ongoing need amongst north west London residents. A number of providers are using the new data submission, with others being on-boarded.
• We are gathering information from providers to determine priorities for workforce development across north west London to support a skilled and sustainable specialist palliative care workforce.
• We have been working with communities across north west London to build on qualitative feedback around barriers to accessing specialist palliative care services. We are working with these communities to co-design resources to support better access to services, with the aim of reducing inequalities.

This means more people can receive expert support at home, with better coordination of care.

Our priorities over the next 3 weeks:

• Some improvements require recruitment and preparation, which means they are being introduced in stages during 2026.
• We are continuing the planning for the enhanced end of life care beds. A workshop is scheduled to bring together providers and work through delivery options and operational questions. We expect tangible outputs from this workshop that will enable us to finalise potential options for bed locations, on which we will engage locally.

Progress towards implementing new and enhanced services being introduced in 2026:

Our ongoing commitment

We remain firmly committed to:

• providing compassionate, personalised care for everyone who needs it.
• making services easier to navigate and more consistent across North West London.
• continuing open conversations with communities, patients, carers and partner organisations.
• ensuring every improvement reflects what matters most to the people we serve.

We know that palliative and end-of-life care is not something people plan for, and that needs can change quickly. Support is available now, and services will continue to improve over the coming months and years. We are committed to providing compassionate, high-quality care for everyone who needs it, and to being open and clear with patients, families and communities as this work continues.