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Palliative care in acute medical admissions
  1. Lynsey Hunter1,
  2. Elliott Philips2 and
  3. Alex Nicholson3
  1. 1 Acute Medicine, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Middlesbrough, UK
  2. 2 Foundation Programme, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Middlesbrough, UK
  3. 3 Specialist Palliative Care, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, Darlington, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Lynsey Hunter, Acute Medicine, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Middlesbrough TS4 3BW, UK; lynsey.hunter3{at}nhs.net

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjspcare-2020-002552

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    Emergency admission to hospital is a negative prognostic marker for both risk of future admissions and mortality. Overall, mortality post-hospital admission is 22–29% at 1 year.1 2 This led us to question how many acute medical admissions could benefit from a specialist palliative care (SPC) review, how they could be identified and how many are currently referred to SPC from an admission.

    We analysed case notes to determine how many patients presenting to acute medicine had indicators of failing health (a proxy for those who may warrant SPC review). We also collected data on mortality and readmissions and SPC referrals.

    Decision-making on which patients ought to be reviewed by SPC is subjective. We therefore applied the Supportive and Palliative Care Indicators Tool (SPICT) to all. This was developed in 2010 in collaboration between NHS Lothian and The …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors LH: study design, data collection, data analysis and interpretation, drafting the article, final approval, responsible for overall content. EP: data analysis and interpretation, drafting article, critical revision of the article. AN: concept of work, critical revision of the article.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.