ArticleBMJ open2018
What proportion of patients at the end of life contact out-of-hours primary care? A data linkage study in Oxfordshire.
Article in BMJ open, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The effectiveness of out-of-hours palliative care telephone advice lines: A rapid systematic review.Palliative medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Pooled it
- How is community based 'out-of-hours' care provided to patients with advanced illness near the end of life: A systematic review of care provision.Palliative medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Co-designing Community Out-of-hours Palliative Care Services: A systematic literature search and review.Palliative medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Communication during out-of-hours primary care contacts for people with a terminal illness: a scoping review.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Community out-of-hours palliative care - 'It's a patchwork of services': A qualitative study exploring care provision.Palliative medicine · 2025Article
- Utilisation of after-hours telephone support in a home-based hospice service.BMC palliative care · 2022Article
- The impact of covid-19 on out-of-hours adult hospice care: an online survey.BMC palliative care · 2022Article
- Article
- Clinician perspectives on having point of care tests made available to them during out of hours home visiting.BMC family practice · 2021Article
- Variation in referral rates to emergency departments and inpatient services from a GP out of hours service and the potential impact of alternative staffing models.Emergency medicine journal : EMJ · 2021Article
- Protocol for a mixed methods exploratory investigation into the role and contribution of the healthcare assistant in out-of-hours palliative care.BMC nursing · 2021Article
- The roles, responsibilities and practices of healthcare assistants in out-of-hours community palliative care: A systematic scoping review.Palliative medicine · 2020Article
- Paediatric contacts with the UK out-of-hours primary care service and contact outcomes: a regional service evaluation.BMC family practice · 2020Article
- Article
- Quality improvement priorities for safer out-of-hours palliative care: Lessons from a mixed-methods analysis of a national incident-reporting database.Palliative medicine · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesOut-of-hours (OOH) primary care services are a key element of community care at the end of life, yet there have been no previous attempts to describe the scope of this activity. We aimed to establish the proportion of Oxfordshire patients who were seen by the OOH service within the last 30 days of life, whether they were documented in a palliative phase of care and the demographic and clinical features of these groups.
designPopulation-based study linking a database of patient contacts with OOH primary care with the register of all deaths within Oxfordshire (600 000 population) during 13 months.
settingOxfordshire.
participantsBetween 1 December 2014 and 30 November 2015 there were 102 877 OOH contacts made by 67 943 patients with the OOH service.
main outcome measuresProportion of patients dying in the Oxfordshire population who were seen by the OOH service within the last 30 days of life. Demographic and clinical features of these contacts.
results29.5% of all population deaths were seen by the OOH service in the last 30 days of life. Among the 1530 patients seen, patients whose palliative phase was documented (n=577, 36.4%) were slightly younger (median age=83.5 vs 85.2 years, P<0.001) and were seen closer to death (median days to death=2 vs 8, P<0.001). More were assessed at home (59.8% vs 51.9%, P<0.001) and less were admitted to hospital (2.7% vs 18.0%, P<0.001).
conclusionsOOH services see around one-third of all patients who die in a population. Most patients at the end of life are not documented as palliative by OOH services and are less likely to receive ongoing care at home.
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