Society Technology & Science Health

Integrated Community Palliative Partnership

There is limited evidence on how best health and social care services can work together in the community to support older people with advanced illness and deteriorating health as they move towards the end of life. The project addresses this gap and provides the basis for developing a new way of delivering healthcare to care home residents with advanced illness.

The new service combines palliative care (including hospice), primary care, social care, geriatrics and specialised nursing support. It puts patients at the centre of their care and delivers care in the place where the older person lives. It intends to prevent multiple unplanned and stressful hospital and emergency admissions. The project will identify what is required for a successful rollout of the service on a large scale. It will also demonstrate how the service’s cost-effectiveness can be evaluated.

Aims

The Integrated Community Palliative Partnership (ICPP) study addresses the following questions:

What are the key elements of an integrated community palliative partnership (ICPP) involving specialist palliative care (including hospice), primary care, social care, geriatrics and specialised nursing support for older people with advanced disease in care homes in South East London?

What would be needed to scale up partnerships across South London and across other community settings?

Methods

This is a service development and modelling study with co-design. There are two phases: Phase 1 involves a literature review and economic modelling, and Phase 2 involves codesign through qualitative interviews (with care home residents and families, and health and social care professionals,) and a series of codesign workshops. The intention of the interviews and workshops is to explore experiences of community-based palliative care and together develop a co-designed conceptual model for an integrated community palliative partnership service.

We have a dedicated Patient and Public Involvement group to advise on the study. We have also engaged with the Cicely Saunders Institute Online Forum for questions about the development of study materials. We plan to continue to engage with PPI representatives, discussing emergent findings, and further developing the dissemination plans, including to lay audiences.

Impact

This research will improve the care of people in care homes by identifying the key ingredients of successful services, co-designed with those affected, and helping to more widely disseminate effective care.

Results will also be published in reports and lay summaries, in scientific journals and conferences throughout the project.