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Evolving role of the hospice day centre during the COVID-19 pandemic
  1. Florence Swann,
  2. Rachel Easton,
  3. John McGuinness and
  4. Suzanne Hutt-Williams
  1. Macmillan Unit, University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, Christchurch, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Florence Swann, University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, Bournemouth, UK; Florence.swann1{at}nhs.net

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjspcare-2021-003133

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    Hospice day centres are a well-established service in the UK that aims to support people approaching the end of their life to live as well as possible. It functions as a complex intervention working to provide symptom control, psychological, social and spiritual support for patients, as well as respite for carers.1 The multifaceted role of the day centre aims to improve symptom control through monitoring and timely reassessments and aims to empower patients, fostering a social environment focused on well-being. In the 2008 census of independent hospices and National Health Service palliative care providers published by the National Audit Office, there were 99 hospice day centres seeing 186 patients on average per year.2

    Palliative care services have an essential role in the response to COVID-19, with calls for the service to respond rapidly and flexibly to the evolving pandemic.3 The coronavirus pandemic forced the closure of many day services throughout the country. The opportunity to seek the attitudes of patients who have already experienced hospice day services is currently limited due to the pandemic and their perspective is fundamental in guiding services to adapt appropriately to the patient’s ongoing needs.

    Our local hospice day centre, which usually serves around 160 attendees per month, closed from March 2020 in …

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    Footnotes

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.