To ask the Minister of Health to detail how he directs health and social care professionals to collaborate with local voluntary sector providers, such as hospices, to address the holistic needs of patients, including their financial and emotional well-being.

I recognise the importance of holistic palliative and end of life care for people with life-limiting conditions and for those who are important to them.

Holistic palliative care should be, and is, provided in response to individual needs taking account of clinical, psychological, emotional, spiritual and social circumstances.

In line with recommendations of the Living Matters, Dying Matters Strategy, when a person is identified as having palliative and end of life care needs they will be allocated a palliative care keyworker, typically the district nurse, who will undertake a holistic assessment using tools such as the Northern Ireland Single Assessment Tool (NISAT).

NISAT is designed to capture information required for holistic person-centred assessment to enable the assessor to identify what support, care or treatment the person may require and where necessary to trigger referral to specialised services.

When assessments identify individuals who have more complex or unresolved needs, or symptoms which cannot be resolved by their generalist services, they would be referred to a relevant specialist palliative care service, including those offered by hospices.

When financial concerns or pressures are highlighted the individual may also be signposted to other services including voluntary partners such as local advice agencies, Macmillan Benefits Service or the Marie Curie Support Line who have advisers trained to offer tailored benefits and/or debt advice.