Welcome to the Daffodil Standards for General Practice: The RCGP and Marie Curie UK General Practice Core Standards for Advanced Serious Illness and End of Life Care. The Daffodil Standards provide a free, evidence-based framework to help practices self-assess and consistently offer the best end of life and bereavement care for patients. The Standards offer a simple structure to enable practices to be proactive organisations in which continuous learning and simple quality improvement steps are an integral part of care.
The short introduction video above will help you get started.
How will the Daffodil Standards help my practice?
Quite simply, the Daffodil Standards will help your whole practice team to spot areas for improvement and build on the good care you already provide. You know your patients best, and the Daffodil Standards will help you to quickly create a clear, structured approach that’s relevant to your practice, your staff and your patients.
Sign up for free
By registering you and your practice receive a welcome pack and gain access to key updates, top tips, free webinars and opportunities to share learning within a community of practice. Your Daffodil Standards welcome pack will include notebooks, pens, posters and leaflets for you and your team, as well as the Daffodil Mark, which can be displayed to highlight the practice's commitment to excellent end of life care and support for people with advanced serious illness. You can view our map of practices who have already signed up to the Daffodil Standards.
Recognising best practice with the Daffodil Standards Awards 2025
The awards identify, recognise and celebrate best practice made by the whole GP practice team in improving palliative care for their patients given the immense pressures facing general practices.
Award categories cover:
- General Practice of the year
- GP of the year
- GP Registrar of the year
- General Practice Clinical team member of the year e.g. Clinical Pharmacist, Nurse, HCA
- Addressing Inequalities in End-of-Life Award e.g. Older people, people in Care Homes, people with Learning Disabilities & Autism, people living in deprived communities
- Non-clinical General Practice team member of the Year e.g. Social prescriber, Link worker, Care coordinators, Practice manager, Reception staff.
Practices or individuals signed up to the Daffodil Standards are eligible for nomination. Previous applicants are welcome to apply but new information and improvements will be required. Applicants are welcome to send three additional supporting documents which should be emailed to daffodilstandards@rcgp.org.uk.
The winners will be announced at a celebration event held this autumn. Category winners will win free delegate passes to this event and standard travel will be covered. Please note any accommodation costs cannot be covered.
Hear from last year’s winners for inspiration on your application.
Nominations for the RCGP and Marie Curie Daffodil Standards Awards 2025 are now closed. We would like to thank all those who submitted entries. The Awards have attracted an exceptional range of inspiring nominations, reflecting the dedication and compassion shown by GP practices in improving end-of-life care. The judging panel will now review all applications, after which winners and those receiving Highly Commended recognition will be notified directly.
Getting started
The following links give background information on the Daffodil Standards and how to use them.
Goals
The Daffodil Standards will help you to:
- Identify and build on areas of your good practice
- Self-assess areas for improvement, relevant to your practice, your staff and your patients
- Share vision to improve end of life and bereavement care with your practice and wider teams
- Develop robust processes with whole practice team, to consistently support improvements e.g. coding, communication and involvement, feedback methods
- Share learning and connect with opportunities in your wider system locally
An analogy of growing daffodils can be used to guide you through a quality improvement approach (plan, do, study, act is embedded within it) to the standards across the three levels.
The RCGP designed the Standards in partnership with Marie Curie, led by Dr Catherine Millington-Sanders, RCGP and Marie Curie National End of Life Care Clinical Champion. Experienced GPs and healthcare professionals supported the process, and helped make sure the Standards fit into the work you’re already doing, rather than adding to your workload.
The development of the Daffodil Standards has been led by:
- Dr Catherine Millington-Sanders, RCGP and Marie Curie National End of Life Care Clinical Champion
- Dr Rachael Marchant, RCGP and Marie Curie End of Life Care Clinical Support Fellow
Devolved Nations leads
- Dr Scott Jamieson (Scotland)
- Dr Anish Kotecha (Wales)
- Dr Grainne Doran (Northern Ireland)
RCGP and Marie Curie would like to acknowledge key organisations consulted during the development of the Daffodil Standards, including experienced clinicians, academics, commissioners, legal experts, patients and carer groups involved in end of life care:
- Action Hearing Loss
- Age UK
- Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care Partnership
- Association of Palliative Medicine
- Bakewell Medical Centre, Derbyshire
- British Geriatrics Society
- British Heart Foundation
- British Medical Association
- Caen Medical Centre, North Devon
- Care Quality Commission
- Carers and Patient End of Life Care Research Network
- College of Health Care Chaplains
- Compassion in Dying
- Compassionate Communities UK
- Connecting With People
- Cultural Difference at EOLC
- Daffodil Standards Academic Review Panel
- Dementia UK
- Dr Rowlands & Partners, Cwmbran
- Goldington Avenue Surgery, Bedford
- Gold Standards Framework
- Harley Street Medical Centre, Stoke on Trent
- Health Education England
- Hospice UK
- Hucknell Road Medical Group, Nottingham
- London Ambulance Service
- Longcroft Clinic, Banstead
- Macmillan
- Marie Curie Devolved Nation Leads
- Marie Curie Expert Voices Panel
- Much Wenlock and Cressage Medical Practice, Much Wenlock
- National Association for Patient Participation
- National Bereavement Alliance
- National End of Life Care Programme Board
- NHS England
- Rangeways Road Surgery, Kingswinford
- RCGP Clinical Advisor Network
- RCGP Clinical Champions Network
- RCGP Devolved Nations Chairs
- RCGP Devolved Nations EOLC Leads
- RCGP End of Life Care Advisory Group
- RCGP Patient and Carer Participation group
- RCGP Patient Centred Care project
- Royal College of Nursing
- Royal College of Physicians
- Skills for Care
- Skills for Health
- Sue Ryder
- The Marches Surgery, Herefordshire
- The Old Station Surgery, Ilkeston
- The Orchard Surgery, Bromborough
- The Spa Surgery, Harrogate
- Together for Short Lives
- University of Cambridge
- University of Manchester
- West Leeds Family Practice, Farsley
- Westfield Surgery, Herefordshire
- Whitley House Surgery, Chelmsford
- Wye Valley Surgery, High Wycombe
- Yardley Wood Health Centre, Birmingham
The launch of the Daffodil Standards raises the opportunity to gain further feedback in order to continue developing these resources to support general practice to give the best possible care and support to all patients living with advanced serious illness and those important to them. If you would like to provide feedback to be considered as part of the next planned review process, please email daffodilstandards@rcgp.org.uk.
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