Search results for ‘Subject term:"palliative care"’ Sort:
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Social care and hospital use at the end of life
- Authors:
- BARDSLEY Martin, GEORGHIOU Theo, DIXON Jennifer
- Publisher:
- Nuffield Trust
- Publication year:
- 2010
- Pagination:
- 32p.
- Place of publication:
- London
In England there are gaps in the available information on the quality, volume and cost of health care provided outside hospitals for people in the last year of life. This includes care provided by NHS primary care or community services, the voluntary sector, or social services. The briefing reports on a cohort of 16,479 people who died across three primary care trust (PCT)/local authority areas in England in 2007. The main objective of the work was to describe patterns in use of health and social care by individuals, and to identify areas for further analysis as to the quality of care that may increase the potential for appropriate substitution and greater efficiency in the use of resources. Key findings show that, on average, 30% of the people in the study group had some form of local authority funded social care service in the 12 months prior to death. For older people this proportion exceeded 40%. Seven per cent of the group accessed only social care, 49% accessed hospital inpatient care and 23% used both types of services. Also, the use of social care differs according to the presence of certain long‐term conditions – people with mental health problems, falls and injury, stroke, diabetes and asthma tended to use more
Exploring the cost of care at the end of life
- Authors:
- GEORGHIOU Theo, BARDSLEY Martin
- Publisher:
- Nuffield Trust
- Publication year:
- 2014
- Pagination:
- 30
- Place of publication:
- London
An analysis of the hospital and non-hospital costs for people in the last 90 days of life, using anonymised person-level datasets relating to GP contacts, community nursing, local authority-funded social care, hospice and hospital care. The study demonstrated that hospital costs were by far the largest cost elements of end-of-life care – care in the final three months of life averaged over £4,500 per person who died. The bulk of this cost was due to emergency hospital admissions. Hospital costs increased rapidly in the last few weeks of life. The research also explores whether reduced hospital activity and costs at the end of life were likely to be offset by increased care costs in other health and social care settings using the Marie Curie home-based palliative care nursing service. The results suggest that cost savings might be achievable if community-based support were made more widely available to help people to die in their own homes, where that was their preference. Given the finite resources available for health care, it is important that there is an understanding of the costs of end-of-life care. The report recognises that acquiring good-quality data surrounding costs for palliative care is challenging, especially as care services for those at the end of life are fragmented across many different providers. (Edited publisher abstract)