Objective To evaluate the care of patients dying in hospital without support from specialists in palliative care (SPC), better understand their needs and factors influencing their care.

Methods Prospective UK-wide service evaluation including all dying adult inpatients unknown to SPC, excluding those in emergency departments/intensive care units. Holistic needs were assessed through a standardised proforma.

Results 88 hospitals, 284 patients. 93% had unmet holistic needs, including physical symptoms (75%) and psycho-socio-spiritual needs (86%). People were more likely to have unmet needs and require SPC intervention at a district general hospital (DGH) than a teaching hospital/cancer centre (unmet need 98.1% vs 91.2% p0.02; intervention 70.9% vs 50.8% p0.001) and when end-of-life care plans (EOLCP) were not used (unmet need 98.3% vs 90.3% p0.006; intervention 67.2% vs 53.3% p0.02). Multivariable analyses demonstrated the independent influence of teaching/cancer hospitals (adjusted OR (aOR)0.44 CI 0.26 to 0.73) and increased SPC medical staffing (aOR1.69 CI 1.04 to 2.79) on need for intervention, however, integrating the use of EOLCP reduced the impact of SPC medical staffing.

Conclusion People dying in hospitals have significant and poorly identified unmet needs. Further evaluation is required to understand the relationships between patient, staff and service factors influencing this. The development, effective implementation and evaluation of structured individualised EOLCP should be a research funding priority.