In March 2017, the Shifting the Balance of Care report, written by the Nuffield Trust, concluded that targeting end of life care for service innovation has the potential to significantly reduce the burden on emergency services, and to improve outcomes for patients. The report included the example of the Marie Curie Cancer Service, which provides comprehensive home-based health and social care for patients at end of life; the patients in contact with the service were more likely to die at home, and were less likely to have emergency admissions compared to those not receiving the service.

It is against this background, and the trials of PallCall and Goldline that the Thames Valley advice line pilot was developed, to provide specialist support via phone to patients using 111 for palliative and end of life care needs. To analyse the full impact of the service, a period of data gathering took place before the pilot launched. The majority of the palliative and end of life care calls (87%) came in to 111 during out of hours, suggesting (as the Shifting Balance of Care report concluded) that there is an opportunity to impact the urgent and emergency care system across the Thames Valley.

Originally published in February 2019, the findings in this resource are still relevant and so it has been re-badged for South East Clinical Delivery and Networks.

Published: February 2021