Patients Who Die in Hospital—is There an Unmet Palliative Care Need?

Abstract

Background The majority of people in the UK die in hospital and many more die in hospital than are seen by the inpatient specialist palliative care team (SPCT). Aims To assess the population of patients who die in hospital and to establish if there is an unmet specialist palliative care need in patients not referred to the SPCT. Methods We conducted a retrospective case note evaluation and collection of death certificate data of all 109 patients that died at Good Hope Hospital Birmingham in September 2012. We assigned Gold Standards Framework (GSF) prognostic indicator criteria to assess possible palliative care need. We assessed differences between the population of patients referred to the SPCT and those that were not. Results 19/109 patients were seen by SPCT and 19/109 were known to community SPCT. 48/109 patients died <72 hours following admission. 29/109 patients scored 0 on the GSF criteria, with 47/109, 26/109 and 7/109 scoring 1, 2 and 3