Access to palliative care medicines in the community: an evaluation of practice and costs using case studies of service models in England

Abstract

Background: good patient access to medicines at home during the last 12 months of life is critical for effective symptom control, prevention of distress and avoidance of unscheduled and urgent care. 

Objectives: to undertake an evaluation of patient and carer access to medicines at end-of-life within the context of models of service delivery. 

Design: evaluative, mixed method case studies of service delivery models, including cost analysis. The unit of analysis was the service delivery model, with embedded sub-units of analysis. 

Setting: (i) General Practitioner services (ii) Palliative care clinical nurse specialist prescribers (iii) a 24/7 palliative care telephone support line service. Participants: Healthcare professionals delivering end-of-life care; patients living at home, in the last 12 months of life, and their carers. 

Methods: within each case: Patients/carers completed a structured log on medicines access experiences over an 8-week period. Logs were used as an aide memoire to sequential, semi-structured interviews with patients/carers at study entry, and at four and eight weeks. Healthcare professionals took part in semi-structured interviews focused on their experiences of facilitating access to medicines, including barriers, and facilitating factors. Data on prescribed medicines were extracted from patient records. Detailed contextual data on each case were also collected from a range of documents. Patient, carer and healthcare professional interview data were analysed using Framework Analysis to identify main themes. We estimated prescription costs and budget impact analysis of the different service models. Data were triangulated within each case. Cross-case comparison and logic models were employed to enable systematic comparisons across service delivery types. 

Findings: accessing medicines is a process characterised by complexity and systems inter-dependency requiring considerable co-ordination work by patients, carers and healthcare professionals. Case studies highlighted differences in speed and ease of access to medicines across service delivery models. Key issues were diversifying the prescriber workforce, the importance of continuity of relationships and team integration, access to electronic prescribing systems, shared records and improved community pharmacy stock. Per patient prescription cost differentials between services were modest but were substantial when accounting for the eligible population over the medium term. 

Conclusions: experiences of medicines access would be improved through increasing numbers of nurse and pharmacist prescribers, and improving shared inter-professional access to electronic prescribing systems and patient records, within care delivery systems that prioritise continuity of relationships. Community pharmacy stock of palliative care medicines also needs to become more reliable.

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