1962 Improving end-of-life care in Acute Medicine: A retrospective review

End-of-life (EOL) care aims to anticipate, prevent and treat symptoms experienced by the dying patient. An EOL care strategy described by King’s Health Partners (KHP) outlines the ‘ICARE’ framework, created from the five priorities for the dying patient, giving generalist hospital teams a memorable prompt to consider holistic needs of patients. We aim to reconcile performance of Acute Medical Unit (AMU) in providing EOL care, against KHP's framework, to reduce patient suffering and improve care.

A prospective review was performed of all AMU deaths from March-September 2021, reviewing resuscitation status and EOL medications. Sudden deaths for full resuscitation were excluded. Following review, teaching to AMU was delivered and a wall poster of the ‘ICARE’ framework was displayed. A second prospective cycle was performed reviewing deaths from March-September 2022.

50 deaths were recorded in cycle one. 21% (12/58) of dying patients were not prescribed EOL medications. Medication omission for 50% (6/12) of patients were due to lack of recognition of EOL. Other reasons included no consultant review, undecided resuscitation status and a missing prescription. In cycle two, 11% of dying patients (6/48 patients) were not prescribed EOL medications, all of which were due to lack of recognition of EOL. 12 deaths had EOL medications prescribed but had an inappropriate resuscitation status.

The second cycle showed a 50% reduction in deaths with EOL medication omissions, when compared to the first cycle. Reasons for medication omissions were less varied in cycle two, highlighting reduction in avoidable causes. Although not affecting patient care, a notable number of patient records had incorrect resuscitation statuses. Overall, improvement in delivery of EOL care within AMU can be seen. Future considerations involve emphasis on keeping electronic patient record up to date to avoid errors and continual provision of education to new and rolling staff.