Marie Curie response to Sir Bruce Keogh’s report on urgent and emergency care

In response to Sir Bruce Keogh’s report published today on urgent and emergency care, a spokesperson for Marie Curie, said:

“At a time when A&Es are already under immense pressure, more should be done to reduce the high number of avoidable emergency admissions that terminally ill people experience, with figures showing that 40% of people are dying in hospital without having a clinical need to be there.¹

“By ensuring the right care packages are in place in the community for terminally ill people and their families, emergency hospital admission for those at the end of life could be substantially reduced.

“We want to see all people diagnosed with a terminal illness given the option to record their preferences for where they would like to be cared for and die and to have those preferences recorded on an Electronic Palliative Care Co-ordination System (EPaCCS). We know that EPaCCS are effective in reducing the number of emergency admissions for people who are terminally ill but they are only available to a small proportion of the population. 

“But it’s not just about using the right tools. Research has shown that those with the highest social care costs had relatively lower hospital costs, irrespective of age². But for people who are terminally ill time is precious. Unfortunately many who are terminally ill face waits of up to a month for the social care they need, while organisations argue about how much care they need and who will pay for it. Some people die while they are waiting for this care.

“Too many terminally ill people are inappropriately admitted to hospital and it’s often the last place that they want to be. At a time when A&Es are already struggling to cope with the numbers of people coming through their doors, we should be doing more to ensure that terminally ill people can remain at home with their families,  in a care home or hospice.“

Marie Curie is calling on the Government to:

• Provide swift access to free social care for people in the last six months of life;
• Make EPaCCS universally available to terminally ill people and their families; and
• Enshrine a right to be offered an advanced care plan for terminally ill people in the NHS Constitution.
• Give 24/7 access to palliative care

-ENDS-

References:

^{1 - The National Audit Office found in 2008 that in one English Trust 40% of people who died in hospital had no clinical need to be there. (National Audit Office, End of Life Care 2008). The number of people who die in hospital with no clinical need to be there will vary from hospital to hospital. However, if we use the National Audit Office’s 40% figure as a rough guide and apply this to the total number of hospital deaths in the UK in 2011, then around 113,947 people who died in hospital had no clinical need to be there.↩}

^{2 – Public Health England “What we know now October 2013”.↩}