Two thirds of people with end-of-life care needs in Wales are not on a GP palliative care register – reducing the chances of them getting comprehensive co-ordinated palliative care, the Welsh Government has said.
The statistics emerged in a Welsh Government annual analysis of end of life care, Together for Health, which shows that the numbers of patients on GPs’ palliative care registers in the country almost tripled between 2008/9 and 2013/14.
However, it found that practices are still only registering about a third of those who are in the final year of their lives.
The Welsh Government report estimates that about 24,000 people a year require palliative care overall, but there are only 8,272 on a palliative care register.
It said: ’GPs in Wales are capturing about a third of those with palliative care needs on a primary care register. Not being on the register does not mean that an individual is not known to a practice or is not getting adequate palliative care.
’However, patients not on a register are less likely to be getting comprehensive co-ordinated palliative care.’
One of the challenges for 2015/16 is ‘supporting GPs to ensure that patients are identified earlier as being in their last year of life,’ the report states.
The headline of this article was amended at 10:15 on 18 November from ’GP lists’ to ’GP registers’
