Providing quality end of life care to older people dying in nursing care homes in the UK. Are we are asking the impossible?

Julie Kinley is a Nurse Consultant for care homes at St Christopher’s Hospice Care Home Project and Research team.

It is rare for any positive publicity to emerge from care homes these days. Press reports about care tend to be generally negative regardless of care setting, as illustrated by the recent Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundations Trust Public Inquiry report and the report More care less pathway, a review of the Liverpool Care Pathway’ by Julia Neuberger. Since there are three times as many beds in care home as there are in the NHS, there is actually an increased chance of such adverse publicity emerging from a care home setting.