ArticlePalliative medicine2018
Ambulance staff and end-of-life hospital admissions: A qualitative interview study.
Article in Palliative medicine, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Paramedics delivering palliative and end-of-life care in community-based settings: A systematic integrative review with thematic synthesis.Palliative medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Dying as a 'normal', 'ordinary' or 'natural' process in palliative care: a systematic scoping review and narrative synthesis.BMC palliative care · 2026Article
- Just-in-case medication use by ambulance paramedics responding to end-of-life care in the community: protocol for a multi-method study (RELIEF).British paramedic journal · 2025Article
- Pediatric Palliative Care Patient Transfers of Location at End-of-Life: A 7-Year Retrospective Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Paramedics providing end-of-life care: an online survey of practice and experiences.BMC palliative care · 2024Article
- Palliative care patients in the emergency medical service: a retrospective cohort study from Finland.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Improving paramedic responses for patients dying at home: a theory of change-based approach.BMC emergency medicine · 2023Article
- Article
- Prehospital emergency medicine for children receiving palliative home care in Germany-a cross-sectional, exploratory study of EMS providers.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2023Article
- Implementation and evaluation of a palliative care training unit for EMS providers.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2023Article
- Creating virtual communities of practice for ambulance paramedics: a qualitative evaluation of the use of Project ECHO in end-of-life care.British paramedic journal · 2022Article
- Article
- Admission to the Emergency Department by Patients Being Followed up for Palliative Care Consultations.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- What is the role of paramedics in palliative and end of life care?Palliative medicine · 2022Article
- Palliative care in the pre-hospital service in Brazil: experiences of health professionals.BMC palliative care · 2022Article
- What are the risk factors for avoidable transitions in the last year of life? A qualitative exploration of professionals' perspectives for improving care in Germany.BMC health services research · 2021Article
- Article
- Advance care planning in patients referred to hospital for acute medical care: Results of a national day of care survey.EClinicalMedicine · 2020Article
- Paramedic information needs in end-of-life care: a qualitative interview study exploring access to a shared electronic record as a potential solution.BMC palliative care · 2019Article
- Home care and end-of-life hospital admissions: a retrospective interview study in English primary and secondary care.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundHospital admissions for end-of-life patients, particularly those who die shortly after being admitted, are recognised to be an international policy problem. How patients come to be transferred to hospital for care, and the central role of decisions made by ambulance staff in facilitating transfer, are under-explored.
aimTo understand the role of ambulance staff in the admission to hospital of patients close to the end of life.
designQualitative interviews, using particular patient cases as a basis for discussion, analysed thematically. PARTICIPANTS/
settingAmbulance staff ( n = 6) and other healthcare staff (total staff n = 30), involved in the transfer of patients (the case-patients) aged more than 65 years to a large English hospital who died within 3 days of admission with either cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or dementia.
resultsAmbulance interviewees were broadly positive about enabling people to die at home, provided they could be sure that they would not benefit from treatment available in hospital. Barriers for non-conveyance included difficulties arranging care particularly out-of-hours, limited available patient information and service emphasis on emergency care.
conclusionAmbulance interviewees fulfilled an important role in the admission of end-of-life patients to hospital, frequently having to decide whether to leave a patient at home or to instigate transfer to hospital. Their difficulty in facilitating non-hospital care at the end of life challenges the negative view of near end-of-life hospital admissions as failures. Hospital provision was sought for dying patients in need of care which was inaccessible in the community.
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