ArticlePalliative medicine2023
'Thank goodness you're here'. Exploring the impact on patients, family carers and staff of enhanced 7-day specialist palliative care services: A mixed methods study.
Article in Palliative medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 3 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Experience of Care in People With Palliative Needs and Their Families: A Qualitative Metasynthesis.Journal of clinical nursing · 2026Pooled it
- Integrated palliative care and oncology: a realist synthesis.BMC medicine · 2025Review
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 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundHealthcare usage patterns change for people with life limiting illness as death approaches, with increasing use of out-of-hours services. How best to provide care out of hours is unclear.
aimTo evaluate the effectiveness and effect of enhancements to 7-day specialist palliative care services, and to explore a range of perspectives on these enhanced services.
designAn exploratory longitudinal mixed-methods convergent design. This incorporated a quasi-experimental uncontrolled pre-post study using routine data, followed by semi-structured interviews with patients, family carers and health care professionals. SETTING/
participantsData were collected within specialist palliative care services across two UK localities between 2018 and 2020. Routine data from 5601 unique individuals were analysed, with post-intervention interview data from patients (
resultsThe mean age of people receiving care was 73 years, predominantly white (90%) and with cancer (42%). There were trends for those in the intervention (enhanced care) period to stay in hospital 0.16 days fewer, but be hospitalised 2.67 more times. Females stayed almost 3.5 more days in the hospital, but were admitted 2.48 fewer times. People with cancer had shorter hospitalisations (4 days fewer), and had two fewer admission episodes. Themes from the qualitative data included responsiveness (of the service); reassurance; relationships; reciprocity (between patients, family carers and staff) and retention (of service staff).
conclusionsEnhanced seven-day services provide high quality integrated palliative care, with positive experiences for patients, carers and staff.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.