A group of regional NHS leaders have been warned that a rising number of end-of-life patients in hospitals could affect the level of treatment provided this winter. A palliative care consultant flagged the looming \u201ccrisis\u201d during an internal online meeting of health leaders in Sussex. The consultant described the dilemmas facing hospital managers when some patients need to receive end-of-life care in emergency department corridors.<\/p>\n
The consultant gave a slide presentation entitled \u201cPalliative and end-of-life care in Sussex\u201d at the meeting. She told the audience that local hospices were struggling and finding places for patients needing end-of-life care was difficult. It was sometimes not clear how much support there would be in the local community when people were sent home. The consultant expressed concern that patients with treatable conditions are not being able to be admitted to hospital and treated because so many patients are in hospital beds at the end of their lives.<\/p>\n
The consultant said that they are no longer putting patients on the transfer waiting list who are in the process of dying, but are only focusing on those with complex needs. On improving palliative care in the emergency department, the consultant said it was a "really difficult decision": do you take them in for care in the hallway or turn them around and put them in the back of the ambulance where they could die on the way home? There are \u201ca lot of patients in the hospital who don\u2019t need to be there, a lot of patients with complex needs whose needs aren\u2019t being met.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesman for the NHS said it was committed to ensuring patients had access to the \u201cbest possible, high quality palliative and end-of-life care\u201d. This includes providing a range of venues for compassionate, person-centred care \u2013 and particularly, where possible, in settings outside of hospital, such as community settings and hospices. Emergency care services remain under significant pressure, but staff continue to work incredibly hard to ensure patients receive the care they need in hospitals and across health and care services.<\/p>\n
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine said delayed discharges were a major challenge across the NHS and a lack of social or community care could mean some patients who need end-of-life care and support are unable to leave hospitals. Patients who would rather stay at home may end up in corridors, which is not the right place for anyone, let alone those who are at the end of their lives. An NHS clinician said the problems had been building up for some time: "End-of-life care, carried out in emergency departments, in corridors, in ambulances or on discharge home without support, has become increasingly routine in many regions.<\/p>\n
The NHS Confederation said hospitals could be the \u201cdefault option\u201d when community and social care is under pressure or unavailable. The solution isn\u2019t about asking hospitals alone to absorb more pressure \u2013 it\u2019s about investing in the whole system. Community services are also overwhelmed and hospices are warning of a funding crisis. Hospices across the country want to provide more care in the community, but this year they’ve seen cuts due to funding pressures, having a domino effect on hospitals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Introduction to the Crisis A group of regional NHS leaders have been warned that a rising number of end-of-life patients in hospitals could affect the level of treatment provided this winter. A palliative care consultant flagged the looming \u201ccrisis\u201d during an internal online meeting of health leaders in Sussex. The consultant described the dilemmas facing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[2306,21401,7053,21402,9270,2272,21399,63,1418,8804,14965,10455,4927,21400,1182],"class_list":{"0":"post-28886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-blood-pressure","9":"tag-care-in-the-community","10":"tag-community","11":"tag-domino-effect","12":"tag-emergency-department","13":"tag-emergency-medicine","14":"tag-end-of-life-care","15":"tag-health","16":"tag-health-care","17":"tag-health-professional","18":"tag-hospital","19":"tag-palliative-care","20":"tag-patient","21":"tag-royal-college-of-emergency-medicine","22":"tag-university-of-sussex"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28888,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28886\/revisions\/28888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}