Seeing a single GP is better for people with dementia
13th July 2022
Transitions to hospital are distressing for people with dementia, and are also stressful for their families. Between 9 to 20% people dying with dementia have some transition of care in the last three months of life. Researchers based at the Cicely Saunders Institute looked at data from a nationally representative sample of GP practices in England and found that 5% of people who died with dementia had several transitions to hospital in the last three months of life.
By contrast the data showed that people with dementia living at home, with better continuity of care with GPs who had identified their palliative care needs, are less likely to be moved in and out of hospital in the last three months of life.
This indicated that improving continuity of care and identification of palliative care needs in general practices might reduce unnecessary and burdensome transitions to hospital for people dying with dementia.
Javiera Leniz Martelli, lead author of the research paper said: ‘People with dementia living at home with better continuity of care with GPs, and those whose palliative care needs have been identified in primary care are less likely to have transitions to hospital at the end of life.’
Leniz J, Gulliford M, Higginson IJ, Bajwah S, Yi D, Gao W, Sleeman KE. Primary care contacts, continuity, identification of palliative care needs, and hospital use: a population-based cohort study in people dying with dementia. Br J Gen Pract. 2022 Apr 7:BJGP.2021.0715. doi: 10.3399/BJGP.2021.0715. https://bjgp.org/content/early/2022/07/11/BJGP.2021.0715