Background A third of hospital patients are in their last year of life and almost 50% of people die in hospital. Gold Standards Framework (GSF) is a quality improvement programme enabling coordinated care for people in the last year of life. A yearly audit is completed at Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust (DGFT) to support implementation of GSF and identification of patients in the last year of life to enable an individual plan of care for patients.

Method The inpatients on adult wards were identified on the 1st April 2019 through the information team and the number of deaths in the following year recorded in order to review the% of adult inpatients in the last year of life within the hospital and broken down by ward. This was repeated for the 1st April 2020 during the first wave of the COVID pandemic

Results The results for 2019 were that of 566 adult inpatients on the 1.4.2019, 187 died within 12 months (33%). This last year has been unprecedented due to COVID pandemic and the results for 2020 demonstrated that of the 407 inpatients on the 1.4.20, 167 died within 12 months (40%). This provides the ward with information for their speciality as a number of wards were identified as having a higher percentage of patients die within the year for example, elderly care, respiratory, gastroenterology and oncology wards.

Conclusion Despite this year’s challenges with Covid-19, this audit has supported the implementation of the Gold Standards Framework within DGFT and provided the wards with evidence regarding the percentage of patients on their ward in the last year life with the aim of implementing an individual plan of care.