ArticleBMJ open2020
Unscheduled and out-of-hours care for people in their last year of life: a retrospective cohort analysis of national datasets.
Article in BMJ open, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- Models, components and outcomes of palliative and end-of-life care provided to adults living at home: A systematic umbrella review of reviews.Palliative medicine · 2025Pooled it
- The effectiveness of out-of-hours palliative care telephone advice lines: A rapid systematic review.Palliative medicine · 2024Pooled 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
- Article
- "We do what needs to be done": caregivers' experiences of healthcare and support for people with multiple long-term conditions in the last year of life.BMC palliative care · 2026Article
- Article
- Article
- The Integration of Social and Health Sectors in Scotland: An Analysis from the Prism of Different Public Policy Models.Journal of market access & health policy · 2025Article
- Integration of Palliative Care into Primary Care: A Collaborative Effort Between the Indian Association of Palliative Care and the Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine.Indian journal of community medicine : official publication of Indian Association of Preventive & Social Medicine · 2024Article
- Association between ethnicity and emergency department visits in the last three months of life in England: a retrospective population-based study using electronic health records.BMJ public health · 2024Article
- Article
- Development of a palliative paramedicine framework to standardise best practice: A Delphi study.Palliative medicine · 2024Article
- Primary palliative care: Onwards and upwards!Palliative medicine · 2024Article
- Telephone advice lines for adults with advanced illness and their family carers: a qualitative analysis and novel practical framework.Palliative medicine · 2024Article
- Can proactive support prevent unscheduled care? A controlled observational retrospective cohort study in cancer patients in Scotland.BMC health services research · 2024Observational
- GP assessment of unmet need in a complex multimorbid population using a data-driven and clinical triage system: a prospective cohort study.BJGP open · 2023Article
- 'The palliative care ambulance': A qualitative study of patient and caregiver perspectives of an ambulance service.Palliative medicine · 2023Article
- Patient Reported Outcomes and Unscheduled Health Services use During Oral Anti-Cancer Treatment.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2023Article
- Free-text analysis of general practice out-of-hours (GPOOH) use by people with advanced cancer: an analysis of coded and uncoded free-text data.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesTo analyse patterns of use and costs of unscheduled National Health Service (NHS) services for people in the last year of life.
designRetrospective cohort analysis of national datasets with application of standard UK costings. PARTICIPANTS AND
settingAll people who died in Scotland in 2016 aged 18 or older (N=56 407).
main outcome measuresFrequency of use of the five unscheduled NHS services in the last 12 months of life by underlying cause of death, patient demographics, Continuous Unscheduled Pathways (CUPs) followed by patients during each care episode, total NHS and per-patient costs.
results53 509 patients (94.9%) had at least one contact with an unscheduled care service during their last year of life (472 360 contacts), with 34.2% in the last month of life. By linking patient contacts during each episode of care, we identified 206 841 CUPs, with 133 980 (64.8%) starting out-of-hours. People with cancer were more likely to contact the NHS telephone advice line (63%) (χ
conclusionsOver 90% of people used NHS unscheduled care in their last year of life. Different underlying causes of death and demographic factors impacted on initial access and subsequent pathways of care. Managing more unscheduled care episodes in the community has the potential to reduce hospital admissions and overall costs.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.