What are the best ways of providing palliative care outside of working hours to avoid crises and help patients to stay in their place of choice? This includes symptom management, counselling and advice, GP visits and 24-hour support, for patients, carers and families.
Most people say that they would prefer care at home. However, delivering community palliative care outside normal working hours (‘out of-hours’) is frequently challenging and is variable for patients. Research into community palliative care in the evenings and overnight, and at weekends and bank holidays, has been identified as the top priority for research by professionals, patients and families (see: https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/globalassets/media/documents/research/PeolcPSP_Final_Report.pdf)
Researchers at the Cicely Saunders Institute, King’s College London are undertaking a UK-wide study: Understanding and improving community palliative care out of hours, funded
by Marie Curie. The study aims to identify how palliative care is delivered out of hours and explore patients’ and families’ experiences of different approaches.
The findings will construct new knowledge on how best to provide palliative care out of hours.
We are inviting you to participate in this important work. We want to hear from clinical leads from community specialist palliative care services, such as hospices and NHS teams.
We want to understand how you provide care out-of-hours. Taking part would mean completing a brief online questionnaire (15 minutes) and a virtual individual interview (45-
60 minutes). More information about the project can be seen in this short video).
For more ionformation about the project go to: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/cicelysaunders/research/evaluating/out-of-hours-community-palliative-care
If you would like to know more about taking part in the study, please contact Joanna Goodrich: Joanna.goodrich@kcl.ac.uk
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