The national survey on accessing medicines during the last year of life has an extended deadline to the end of this month.
How can we as individuals, teams and organisations engage and contribute to research and care – especially if we are not in research-specific roles?
One of the ways to do this is to be a research engaged or contributing hospice by being part of robust, credible and relevant research studies. One such study which hospices can be involved in is led by Professor Sue Latter from the University of Southampton with the University of Leeds and the University of Bradford. It is looking at patient access to medicines during the last year of life.
Patient access to medicines during the last year of life is critical for control of symptoms. Yet there is evidence that access is often experienced by patients as difficult, complex and demanding.
As part of a National Institute for Health Research funded study, we are conducting a brief, online survey of health care professionals, to capture views on providing patients and carers with access to palliative care medicines, and on what facilitates and prevents good practice.
Your views will contribute to a national picture of current practice which will inform the next phases of our research, and ultimately, help shape national policy and practice enabling patients to have good access to medicines. Further details about the research can be found on the NIHR website
We are asking registered healthcare professionals within England, who provide palliative and end-of-life care to adults in the community, to complete the online survey which will take approximately 10-15 minutes. Please complete the survey or forward the link to colleagues/teams that are:
- General Practitioners
- Palliative care clinical nurse specialists who are community based
- Community nurses (RN qualified)
- Primary care pharmacists employed by GP practices
- Community pharmacists working in community pharmacy
We look forward to receiving completed questionnaires by September 30.
For further details about the survey please read the Participant Information Sheet
If you have any queries about the research, or would like to be added to the list for dissemination of study results, please contact Dr Natasha Campling
Funding acknowledgement
This study is funded by the NIHR [Health Services & Delivery Research programme] (project number 16/52/23).
Department of Health and Social Care disclaimer
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.
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