An Analysis of Healthcare Usage & Place of Death in England for All Adults Who Died in 2021/22

Abstract

Objective

We wanted to examine the healthcare use and non-elective activity in the UK population of expected deaths over an 1-year period to highlight and examine the reasons for variation. We did this to identify areas to focus interventions or resources on to reduce unnecessary emergency care use at the end of life.

Methods and Analysis

We assembled a data set of approximately 400 000 adults who died in England in the financial year 2021/22 (April 2021-March 2022). Any adults classified as a ‘sudden death’ were excluded. We used available data to ensure outcome measures were relevant used expert consensus to agree what to examine. We recorded place of death and examined urgent care in terms of admissions in the last year and 90 days of life. We also used recorded hospital care days as elective and non-elective usage.

Results

There were over 400 000 decedents included in our regression models. Close to half died in hospital (44%). Three-quarters (77%) had at least one day of unplanned hospital care in the 90 days before they died, and half (56%) had at least one day of planned hospital care.

Conclusion

Reliance on urgent care for those approaching end-of-life may indicate poor care planning and integration of services. A relatively modest increase in the amount of community care a person receives at end-of-life can substantially reduce the likelihood of dying in hospital. Those with a cancer cause of death are far less likely to die in hospital.