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Enabling a gold standard of care for all people nearing the end of life

Welcome to the GSF Website!

The National GSF Central Team, based in the NHS, develop frameworks and training programmes to enable generic care providers deliver a gold standard of care for all people nearing the end of life.

GSF is a systematic evidence based approach to optimising the care for patients nearing the end of life delivered by generalist providers. It is concerned with helping people to live well until the end of life and includes care in the final years of life for people with any end stage illness in any setting.

GSF is extensively used in the UK, by thousands of primary care teams and care homes and increasingly in other settings through cross boundary care and also internationally. It is regarded by many as 'the bedrock of generalist palliative care'. GSF is recommended as best practice by the Department of Health End of Life Care Strategy, NICE, Royal College of General Practitioners, Royal College of Nurses and other major policy groups.

The National GSF Centre is hosted within the NHS by Walsall tPCT in the West Midlands. Its aim is to support best implementation of GSF in different settings through specific training programmes, tools, resources and other developments.

Find out more by clicking on the relevant box or link or contact us at the National GSF Centre (Tel: 01922 604666)


Prof Keri Thomas welcomes you to the GSF website

GSF is about....

  • Enabling generalists and improving the confidence of generic staff
  • Organisational system change - the right care at the right time for the right patient
  • Patient led focussed on meeting the needs of patients, families and carers
  • Care for all those with any end stage condition, non-cancer and cancer
  • Pre-planning care in the final year or so of life, proactive rather than reactive care
  • Care closer to home - decreasing hospital admissions and deaths
  • Cross boundary care and in all settings - care homes, hospitals, hospices etc

A framework to enable a gold standard of care for all people nearing the end of life

"Every organisation involved in providing end of life care will be expected to adopt a co-ordination process, such as the GSF"
Department of Health End of Life Care Strategy 2008

"The GSF is one of the most significant developments in the improvement in end of life care since Dame Cicely Saunders founded the hospice movement."
Penny Hansford Director of Nursing, St Christopher Hospice London

"GSF is less about what you know and more about what you do and how you do it, to ensure the right thing happens at the right time for the right patient"
GP West Midlands

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