Needs Rounds
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Improving end of life care: supporting the workforce and reducing hospitalisations through an implementation study in care homes
IRAS ID
287447
Contact name
Liz Forbat
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Stirling
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 3 months, 31 days
Research summary
Up to 50% of care home residents in the UK die within 6 months of admission. Residents often don’t get access to end of life care from hospice teams, and so may experience unnecessary and distressing symptoms at end of life.
Recent work conducted in Australia tested a new way to provide specialist palliative care to care home residents called ‘Needs Rounds’. Needs Rounds are monthly staff meetings where up to 8 residents are prioritised for discussion, focusing on those most at risk of dying without an adequate plan in place. Needs Rounds include a review of the person’s physical, psychological, and social wellbeing, education for staff on symptom management, and a plan of necessary actions such as medicine reviews or case conferences.
We want to understand whether Needs Rounds will work in the UK. We will work with 6 specialist palliative care services, each of which will link with 4-6 local care homes. We will conduct individual/small group interviews to learn how Needs Rounds should be adapted in each of the 6 case study sites. We’ll then run workshops to co-design Needs Rounds with site clinicians. We will then use the UK-version for 12 months, and get feedback from local staff on how it’s working and whether anything needs doing differently. We will change Needs Rounds as we go. We will monitor residents’ health service use, quality of dying, and staff capacity to care for people using a palliative approach.
At the end of the study we will have produced a UK-version of Needs Rounds, and have evidence on whether it helps UK care home residents to stay out of hospital, improves symptom control for better deaths, improves staff capability to look after older people in care homes at end of life and reduces hospital costs.REC name
South West - Frenchay Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/SW/0152
Date of REC Opinion
15 Dec 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion