Unscheduled Care at the End of Life

That the Parliament welcomes new research by the University of Edinburgh, funded by Marie Curie and the Chief Scientist Office for Scotland, titled "unscheduled and out-of-hours care for people in their last year of life: a retrospective cohort analysis of national datasets"; notes its findings that many more people in their last year of life have used unscheduled care services than was recognised before; acknowledges the study’s findings that providing this care puts significant clinical resource and financial demands on healthcare systems; understands that unscheduled care for those in their last year of life costs the NHS £190 million per year; recognises the study’s conclusions that investing in community-based unscheduled primary care services can reduce hospital admissions and overall costs to the NHS; acknowledges the study’s recommendations and Marie Curie’s calls for enhanced data recording and analysis systems to improve identification of people with palliative care needs and coordination of their care, a Scottish Government-funded programme to enhance health and social care professional capacity to offer more people an anticipatory care planning approach, a new palliative and end-of-life care strategy that includes specific recognition of the role of unscheduled care in supporting terminally ill people, the appointment of a national clinical lead to coordinate the delivery of a new palliative and end-of-life care strategy, which takes account of changes due to COVID-19, and the Scottish Government to re-establish and support the Scottish Palliative Care Research Forum to support knowledge exchange in Scotland between policymakers, practitioners, commissioners and researchers; urges the Scottish Government to consider these recommendations, and commends the University of Edinburgh, Marie Curie and the Chief Scientist Office for Scotland for their ongoing commitment to providing leading research in the field of terminal illness, palliative and end-of-life care.