Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here for more information on Social Problems, 2e

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Journal of Social Work
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Reith, M.
Right arrow Articles by Lucas, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?

Questioning the Evidence for Service Assumptions

Audit of Transfers from a Hospice to Nursing Home Care

Margaret Reith

Princess Alice Hospice, Esher, England, margaretreith{at}pah.org.uk

Caroline Lucas

Princess Alice Hospice, Esher and Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals NHS Trust, England, carolinelucas{at}pah.org.uk

• Summary: This article reports an audit of people considered for transfer from a hospice to a nursing home for end-of-life care and discusses implications for patients, families and staff.

• Findings: Moving patients to nursing homes at the end of their lives is often distressing for both patients and families and in many cases patients die within a short time of transfer. Few patients are actually transferred although many more are asked to face this possibility often creating unnecessary anxiety. This may have adverse consequences for family members' bereavement.

• Applications : There is a weak evidence base for transferring patients from hospices to nursing homes. Palliative care services assume a short in-patient stay to ration an expensive scarce resource. Assessment with social work contributions identifying complex emotional, family and bereavement consequences may allow multidisciplinary teams to justify longer hospice stays by identifying more complex needs to justify better substantive equality between patients.

Key Words: assessment • bereavement • hospice • nursing homes • palliative care

Journal of Social Work, Vol. 8, No. 3, 233-245 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1468017308091038
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?