Health & social care in the community
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Health Soc Care Community · Jul 2010
Barriers to dying at home: the impact of poor co-ordination of community service provision for patients with cancer.
For patients dying of cancer, there is an emphasis on giving choice regarding preferred location for care, with the option of dying at home, which is integral to UK government health initiatives such as the End of Life Care Programme. However, patients continue to be admitted to hospital in the terminal phase of their illness when they have expressed a desire to die at home. ⋯ Data were analysed using a thematic analysis approach. From a service provision perspective, the results reveal that poor discharge planning and co-ordination, difficulty in establishing additional equipment and services together with inadequate out of hours medical provision were all factors contributing to hospital admissions for patients with cancer in the last hours and days of life, and thus were barriers to dying at home.