Background The Department of Health End of Life Care Strategy (2008) recommends the delivery of high quality and accessible specialist palliative care. The Quality, Innovation, Prevention and Productivity (QIPP) programme highlights that patients should have access to services that our personalised, compassionate, effective and efficient. These drivers have led to a service improvement in our locality (pop. 300,000) with the development of a bi-monthly afternoon community clinical nurse specialist led palliative clinic. Aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate patient experiences / satisfaction when attending the clinic. There was also a review of the clinic impact on overall savings in travel time and mileage.

Method Over a 2 month period, all patients attending the clinic were offered an opportunity to evaluate the clinic using a structured electronic questionnaire. The questionnaire focused on contentment with the quality, timeliness and location of the services received. Nine months of data was also collated regarding mileage costs and travel time savings.

Results All nine individual clinic attendees, over the evaluation period, completed the questionnaire. All described that they were listened to; given the time they required and received clear communication. Eight felt the clinic was the appropriate location for their assessment. The service perspective is that the clinic also provides an ideal setting for patients to receive an appropriate introduction to the service. Over eighteen clinic sessions, 28 clinical assessments occurred, which provided more capacity than would have been possible in their home environment. The clinic has saved 18 h of travel time alongside a travel cost reduction of two hundred and ninety miles.

Conclusion This pilot service improvement fulfilled the patient's needs, whist working within current resources of our service. A more in-depth research study is planned to explore this area further.