NEWS WORLD IN BRIEF

GREATER ATTENTION NEEDED FOR END OF LIFE AND PALLIATIVE CARE Hospitals must get better at identifying patients who are in their last year of life so they can provide appropriate care, according to the authors of a new Scottish study of hospital inpatients. David Clark, head of the school of interdisciplinary studies at the University of Glasgow, said he hoped hospital boards and senior managers would take note of the findings. The research looked at 10,743 inpatients at 25 hospitals in Scotland on a single day and linked their hospital record to death registrations. Sixty-four per cent of the inpatients were aged 65 and over, and a total of 3,098 (28.8 per cent) died within a year. ‘One striking result was that 9 per cent of patients in hospital at any one time will die on that admission,’ said Professor Clark. ‘For appropriate plans to be made, hospitals need to be aware of the figures from this report and adopt a more vigorous approach to identifying patients who are nearing the last year of their lives.’ Professor Clark added: ‘This is potentially useful research for specialist nurses making a case

for resources to be put into end of life care in hospitals.’ ‘Nurses are on the front line when it comes to having the difficult conversations. But this is not just about specialist staff – it is about recognising that day after day there are people coming into hospital who are in the last year of their life.’ He added that by getting better at identifying those patients who are in the last year of life on admission or at the

‘9 PER CENT OF PATIENTS IN HOSPITAL AT ANY ONE TIME WILL DIE ON THAT ADMISSION’ first ward round, they should get more appropriate care. ‘Our basic message is hospitals need to concede that many patients will have long-term health issues, and the scale of this means there needs to be greater attention to end of life and palliative care,’ Professor Clark said. To access the report, Imminence of Death Among Hospital Inpatients, go to tiny.cc/inpatient_study

Political notebook

months, 87 people had raised concerns with her, compared with the previous 12 months when the trust’s own helpline received two to three calls, she said.

Raising concerns about poor care should be as important as tackling infection control, the nurse who blew the whistle on poor care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust told MPs last week. Helene Donnelly, now ambassador for cultural change at Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Partnership NHS Trust, gave evidence to the Commons health committee inquiry on complaints and raising concerns. She told MPs that her role could be implemented in all trusts. In nearly 12

NHS England medical director Sir Bruce Keogh has requested all hospitals minimise the transfer of patients overnight to different wards. The move was confirmed in a House of Lords debate last week in response to a question from Labour’s Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. Lord Hunt asked what action the government is taking to prevent hospital patients being moved overnight to relieve pressures on beds. Health minister Lord Earl Howe said patients should only be moved for ‘good clinical reasons’.

Our weekly round-up of news from the corridors of power

12 march 26 :: vol 28 no 30 :: 2014

Tribunal ruling A New Zealand nurse convicted for smuggling cigarettes into a prison for an inmate she was in a relationship with has been banned from the profession for three months. Kim Marie Newman must attend education courses and pay an estimated £2,400 costs before returning to nursing, the New Zealand health practitioners disciplinary tribunal ruled. Ms Newman had previously served six months’ home detention after being convicted of smuggling tobacco into the Spring Hill correction facility on the upper North Island for a prisoner in 2011. Recruitment drive The Kenyan government has announced plans to hire an extra 42,000 nurses to address a looming shortage of healthcare workers. The Ministry of Health aims to recruit staff, particularly midwives, over a four-year period. They also plan to hire 20,000 doctors. It follows a warning by the Kenya National Union of Nurses that the country faces a shortfall of 40,000 nurses because 13,000 are scheduled to retire, and thousands more seek employment overseas because of poor working conditions and low wages. Homeland return A recruitment agency is hoping to lure Swedish nurses working in Norway back to their homeland with the promise of higher wages. More than 200 nurses have responded to adverts in Norwegian newspapers, which give Swedish nurses the chance to return home and still earn the same salary as they do in Norway – pay is around £10,000 higher for graduate nurses in Norway. Jan Inge Pettersen, HR director at Akershus University Hospital near Oslo, said that losing Swedish staff would have a big impact on the Norwegian hospital system.

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Greater attention needed for end of life and palliative care.

Hospitals must get better at identifying patients who are in their last year of life so they can provide appropriate care, according to the authors of...
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