86 A missed opportunity? A qualitative study of healthcare professional experiences of delivering palliative care in emergency departments

<h3>Background</h3> Delivering good Palliative Care (PC) is a key aspect of modern healthcare and can be delivered in people’s homes and hospices to a high standard. However, fragmented community care, increasingly complex patients and inevitable emergencies mean that patients do attend Emergency Departments (EDs), which are not places one would usually associate with good PC. Existing work has demonstrated there are challenges in delivering PC in EDs. This work is going to continue to explore the delivery of PC in EDs across the UK, not just from the perspective of ED staff but others who work there, including medics, surgeons and PC professionals. <h3>Methods</h3> Sixteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with healthcare professionals. A thematic analysis was accomplished using the Braun and Clarke (2022) framework. <h3>Results</h3> Seven themes around delivering PC in the ED have been identified: Emergency departments are key It’s not all bad Life and death Recognising and responding Uniquely challenging The hospital treadmill They can’t do it on their own <h3>Conclusion</h3> The ED is a challenging environment to deliver PC. Together these themes identify opportunities; by recognising patients are palliative and responding to this, the ED can be somewhere where their needs are identified and responded to, which changes the course of their hospital admission, and impacts the time they have. It is clearly not easy though; early-career HCPs are trained to work in a system of cure. One that is designed to admit, investigate and treat. Stepping away from that and recognising the opportunities is not something we can expect of ED staff, they need integrated support from specialist PC teams as patients and medicine becomes increasingly complex. <h3>Reference</h3> Braun V, Clarke V. (2022) Thematic Analysis A practical guide. London: SAGE Publications.