McInnerney, D;
Candy, B;
Stone, P;
Atkin, N;
Johnson, J;
Hiskey, S;
Kupeli, N;
(2021)
Access to and adequacy of psychological services for adult patients in UK hospices: a national, cross-sectional survey.
BMC Palliative Care
, 20
, Article 31. 10.1186/s12904-021-00724-3.
Preview |
Text
McInnerney 2021.pdf - Published Version Download (802kB) | Preview |
Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec> <jats:title>Background</jats:title> <jats:p>Providing psychological support to people living with terminal illness is a fundamental part of hospice care. Recent research on delivery of psychological services in hospices in the United Kingdom (UK) on a national level, including inequalities or variation in practice, is limited. A nationwide survey will highlight any differences in provision and in doing so help focus future research and inform best practice both within the UK, and internationally. The specific objectives of this survey are to (1) chart the types of psychological support available to adult patients in hospices in the UK in line with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence model; (2) explore how services are organised; and (3) gather service perspectives on adequacy of care, and facilitators and barriers to appropriate practice.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Methods</jats:title> <jats:p>A cross-sectional online survey emailed to adult hospices in the UK in November–December 2019. One staff member involved in the delivery and/or organisation of psychological support was invited to participate per hospice. Of 193 invited hospices, 116 took part.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Results</jats:title> <jats:p>Sixteen percent rated their hospice psychological service as wholly adequate. The majority reported that services can access specialist professionals, but many relied on external referrals. Barriers to best practice included funding and staff capacity; facilitators included clear referral structures, audit and appropriate needs and outcome assessments.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title> <jats:p>Access to psychological professionals has improved since the last survey 15 years ago, but the majority of responders felt their overall service was not wholly adequate. Basic emotional support is largely felt to be sufficient, but our results indicate a need for improvements in access to more specialist care. Partnerships with external mental health services may be key. Our findings highlight core facilitators and barriers to providing good psychological care at the end of life that should be considered by services both within the UK and on an international level.</jats:p> </jats:sec>
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Access to and adequacy of psychological services for adult patients in UK hospices: a national, cross-sectional survey |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1186/s12904-021-00724-3 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-021-00724-3 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
| Keywords: | Hospices; Palliative care; Psychology, clinical; Mental health; Surveys and questionnaires |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Division of Psychiatry |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10121511 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
