Summary

Key Issues: End of life care

People approaching the last phase of life experience a range of physical and emotional symptoms.  To manage these issues effectively requires integrated and multidisciplinary working between teams and across sectors regardless of whether the person is in their home, in hospital, a care home, or hospice.

Overview of key trends:

Key headlines:

• Older people now spend more time in poor health before they die, with Staffordshire’s growing older population projected to rise in the next 10 years.
  
  
• End of life care is a key issue for Staffordshire; around 2 in 5 deaths occurred at home and 19% occurred in care homes. This continues to be worse than national for the last five years.
  
  
• Higher than average deaths in hospital also mirror increasing trends in hospital admissions seen elsewhere in the system.
  
  
• Planning for the end of life is therefore increasingly important for individuals, their families, carers and the health & care services that support them. 

To view the latest Data Update see the data update page.