Background Within the NHS patients diagnosed with terminal illness with a limited prognosis are expected to be funded for care through a continuing health funding program. One of the key prerequisites of this is to predict a survival of approximately 3 months by a Senior clinician. Predicting Survival is challenging and studies have reported varying degrees of accuracy in among health care professionals especially doctors . We wanted to explore the accuracy of prediction of survival among a group of patients admitted with end-of-life diagnoses.

Methods Data was collected for patients under the palliative care team who had end of life diagnosis at our Teaching Hospital. Information was collated with respect to primary diagnosis, personnel making the prediction of survival, grade of training and actual survival in months.

Results Two hundred and thirty patients were identified from palliative care records, of which 57% were females, with an average age of 81 years .Interestingly the average survival was 3.1 months in this cohort. In 5 cases the prognosis was predicted by advanced nurse practitioners or MDT followed by 38/230 survival predicted by Junior Doctors and in majority of cases 187/230 the supervising consultant proposed a survival prediction. Junior doctor grades included specialist registrars and Internal medicine trainees. Foundation doctors are not able to complete these assessments. 67% of consultant and 66% of Junior Doctors accurately predicted the survival in this cohort to be less than three months .Accurate predictions can help plan EOL care better and consider advance directives. 68% of cancer related survival prediction was accurate while 63% of prediction of survival was accurate in Non cancer diagnosis

Conclusion We conclude that healthcare professionals can provide a fair prediction of survival for patience with end-of-life diagnosis in a majority of cases and can help plan advanced decision making regarding future care.