Report on Service User Involvement

Running head: REPORT
Contemporary Issues Report
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

REPORT1
Executive summary
Service user involvement refers to ensuring that the healthcare services, policies, and
organisations are directed and governed by individuals who use the healthcare services that is
the patients. Palliative and EoLC are two domains of health and social care where patients
suffering from life-threatening illnesses are provided assistance. The focus of this domain is
to effectively manage symptoms, while offering comfort to the patients. This report
elucidated the benefits and challenges that patients of the particular group encounter, in
relation to service user involvement.

REPORT2
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Background to Service User Involvement.................................................................................3
Palliative and EoLC and Service User Involvement..................................................................7
Benefits of service user involvement.........................................................................................9
Challenges of Service User Involvement.................................................................................11
Recommendations....................................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................13

REPORT3
Introduction
Palliative care refers to the care process that places an emphasis on enhancing the
quality of service delivered to patients, thereby improving their quality of life. This care is
typically provided to patients suffering from life-limiting or life-threatening diseases and
their family members, through the effective prevention and management of suffering (Connor
and Sepulveda Bermedo 2018). Palliative care focuses on care goals, early identification,
patient assessment, pain management, and takes into consideration the psychosocial,
physical, and spiritual needs and preferences of the patients. Historically, palliative care was
discovered with the aim of providing support to cancer patients. However, it is now
implemented for the treatment of several diseases like COPD, heart failure,
neurodegenerative conditions and immunodeficiency syndromes.
Likewise, end-of-life care (EoLC) is another domain that occurs during the last stage
of a patient’s life, more commonly during the last few weeks or months. This care is reliant
on the severity of the underlying diagnosis and necessitates a plethora of decisions, such as,
right of the patient to self-determination, care ethics, medical experimentation, continued
medical interventions, and efficacy of hazardous interventions. Moreover, EoLC also focuses
on allocation and rationing of resources in medical systems and across hospitals (Wright et
al. 2016). The decisions are generally informed by both medical and technical considerations,
in addition to bioethics and economic factors. This report will therefore elaborate on service
user involvement, in relation to palliative and EoLC in health and social care. It will provide
a background to service user involvement, followed by a description of the service group,
benefits, challenges and recommendations.