The potential of integrated multi-agency care pathways for children

In 2004, a Framework for the Development of Integrated Multi-agency Care Pathways for Children with Life-Threatening and Life-Limiting Conditions, funded by the Department of Health, was developed by a working party. It included the Association for Children with Life-Threatening or Terminal Conditions and their Families, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. This article will identify the need for this framework and its potential to transform the delivery of palliative care services to overcome present inequalities based on condition and geography that currently beset children with these conditions and their families. It will show how the three stages of the pathway (diagnosis or recognition, living with a condition, and end of life and bereavement) follow the patient's journey and complement guidance set out in the Children's National Service Framework (2004) for multi-agency assessments, protocols and standards to ensure high-quality coordinated care and services. It concludes with the need to evaluate the effectiveness of pathways that may develop from this initiative through audit and research.