Article Text
Abstract
Background St Christopher’s Hospice’s Inpatient Unit has been using a continuous subcutaneous infusion pump for many years. To date there has been limited availability of alternative pumps in the UK. The current pump has limited battery lifespan and software challenges. The pump is only able to support a limited volume and syringe size. The hospice was approached by an international company, who have produced a new European standards approved subcutaneous infusion pump.
Aims To introduce a new pump and evaluate its use.
Methods A project planning agreement made, using the hospice team’s expertise to evaluate the pump. The company supported training of 33 nursing staff. Staff completed an anonymous survey about their experience, the surveys were independently evaluated.
Data collection Individual anonymised patient data was collected including the patient’s diagnosis, age, number of medications used in the pumps and length of time used.
Results The hospice team have supported 135 treatments for 15 patients, over 13 weeks.
Patients’ age range between 32 to 89 years, 2 patients had a non-malignancy and 13 had a primary cancer diagnosis. The range of pump duration: 1 to 26 days. Survey results are still being collated – 15 (45%) staff response to the survey. The staff reported pump benefits including: easy to use; able to administer larger volumes in a more secure method; attachments to the bed side or pole; battery life 10 to 14-day life ; use of rechargeable batteries; lock boxes easy to use and robust.
Negative feedback included: Cassettes were more time consuming to set up; process of air removal more problematic; more expensive than stand syringes and the pump is slightly heavier than previous pump.
Formal patient experience was not evaluated, however, there was no negative informal experience recorded.
Conclusions To purchase pumps and continue to evaluate its use before considering use in a community setting.