PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Keith Goh, Zhao Hang AU - Cheong, Julia Ling-Yu AU - Naveed, Saarang AU - Pinto, Sofia PS AU - Proffitt, Amy TI - 28 The ethnic and cultural impact on delivery of palliative care in Newham general hospital: a brief report AID - 10.1136/spcare-2024-PCC.46 DP - 2024 Mar 01 TA - BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care PG - A19--A19 VI - 14 IP - Suppl 2 4099 - http://spcare.bmj.com/content/14/Suppl_2/A19.1.short 4100 - http://spcare.bmj.com/content/14/Suppl_2/A19.1.full SO - BMJ Support Palliat Care2024 Mar 01; 14 AB - Background Cultural beliefs and ethnicity can impact access to and delivery of palliative care. This includes the planning and communication of details surrounding end of life care such as advance care planning (ACP) and individualised end of life care plans, also known as compassionate care plans (CCP), in acutely deteriorating patients. Newham General Hospital (NGH) provides for a population with a significant ethnic minority. This study aims to investigate the quality of palliative care received by inpatients at NGH in their last days of life.Methods This was a retrospective cohort study conducted in NGH. The study looked at patients admitted within 90 days of their deaths and the various aspects of palliative care received during their admission, including whether a palliative care referral was made, whether CCP was started and whether anticipatory medications were prescribed. Results In this study, 56.3% of patients were from ethnic minorities. 99.6% of patients were reported to have palliative care needs during their admission. 98.5% of patients were referred to the palliative care team and 97.3% had anticipatory medications prescribed. However, only 53.2% of patients had a completed personalised CCP and only 6.13% had a completed urgent care plan (UCP), an electronic system sharing patients’ ACP decisions with healthcare professionals across London. Conclusions The vast majority of patients in this study were referred to the palliative care team, had discussions around ACP and anticipatory medications prescribed. However, this study highlighted important gaps in the form of poor uptake of personalised CCP and UCP documentation. Among patients in NGH, barriers to accessing palliative care could include language, religious or cultural beliefs surrounding death and lower health literacy. Further interventions to bridge this gap would minimise inappropriate admissions and treatment and improve quality of care for terminally ill patients.