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Palliative care quality indicators

How is the Trust doing?

Percentage of patients with palliative care diagnosis who are receiving regular analgesic medication for background pain who are also prescribed with analgesia for breakthrough pain

Rolling year to date (March 2012 – February 2013)	89.9%
Rolling 2 years (March 2011 – February 2013)	89.4%

100% of above patients should also be prescribed with laxatives

Rolling year to date (March 2012 – February 2013)	100%
Rolling 2 years (March 2011 – February 2013)	100%

The Trust is performing very well against these indicators and will continue to monitor performance to ensure it remains high.

Why are these indicators important?

The focus of palliative care is on symptom control and quality of life for patients whose disease is no longer curative; at least 85% of these will be cancer patients. It is therefore very important to ensure palliative care patients have their pain controlled appropriately.

Most of these patients will have a background level of pain most of the time for which long-acting pain relief will be given. Despite this, episodes of more severe pain called breakthrough pain can occur which require additional, quicker-acting pain relief. Patients should be prescribed both types of pain relief so that they can be given additional pain relief without delay when they need it.

Cancer patients are usually prescribed analgesia in the form of opioid drugs to treat their pain. These drugs invariably cause constipation which can be significant so it is important to ensure all patients are also prescribed with laxatives.

How do we measure these indicators?

1. The percentage of patients with a palliative care diagnosis who are receiving regular analgesia for background pain also prescribed with analgesia for breakthrough pain.
2. The percentage of patients receiving analgesia for background pain and prescribed with analgesia for breakthrough pain who are also prescribed laxatives.