Background Frailty within recent years has become a priority for healthcare providers looking at how anticipatory care plans can influence the potential and avoidable possibility of hospital admissions. Similarly, supportive and palliative care aims to meet individuals’ preferences and wishes with hospital admission avoidance a high priority. The hospital setting is therefore an ideal opportunity when needs are identified to set in motion anticipatory/advance care plans, specifically looking at admission avoidance.

Aim To explore the needs of a hospital based supportive and palliative care caseload in conjunction with those of frailty.

Methods A retrospective case-note review of individuals referred to a hospital based supportive and palliative care team (HSPC) and frailty team (F) using standardised data collection sheet.

Results 200 case-notes were reviewed, 100 from each team. Individuals had broadly similar needs with the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) scoring 5 or above, 92% from HSPC and 87% from frailty. The age differed unsurprisingly (74yrs vs. 84yrs (average)) with similar numbers of individuals having had polypharmacy (> 5 or more)(69% vs. 71%). Significant differences were noted in the predominating diagnosis (cancer –69% vs. 3%), multi-morbidity (41% vs. 67%) and those residing in care homes (2% vs. 19%).

Conclusions The findings highlight broadly similar needs for individuals whether they are under a supportive and palliative care team or that of a frailty team within a hospital setting. In particular multi-morbidity, polypharmacy and needs as assessed by Clinical Frailty Score (CFS) were broad similar. The opportunity lies within healthcare providers using similar processes and pooling resources to meet the needs of frailty as well as those of supportive and palliative care. The use of a universal holistic assessment tool is a priority for further exploration within these teams and the individuals they care for.