A study looking at reducing emergency admissions for people with cancer

Cancer type:

All cancer types

Status:

Results

Phase:

Other

This study looked at how to reduce unplanned emergency admissions for people with cancer. It was open to people who live in East Yorkshire.

More about this trial

Sometimes people living with cancer are admitted to hospital as an emergency. Access to good care at home could prevent some of these admissions.

Researchers hoped to develop a programme (or intervention) which would reduce the number of emergency hospital stays people with cancer had. But to do this they needed to understand why they happened.

The study aimed to find out what caused these emergency admissions. The researchers interviewed people with cancer who had recently been admitted to hospital as an emergency.

Summary of results

The study team found the reasons for the emergency admissions of cancer patients and what the process of admission was like.

This study was open for people to join in 2016.

These results were published in 2018.

About this study

Over 6 months the study team looked at the number of cancer patients who had at least 1 emergency admission. They wanted to know what:

was the reason for each emergency admission
was the process of their admissions
they and their carers thought about how the admission was managed

The team interviewed the cancer patients and their carers about the emergency admissions. This was at a place convenient to the patient and happened usually within 4 weeks of their discharge from hospital.

Results

The team looked at 20 patients who came into the emergency department. 13 patients had 2 to 4 admissions over the 6 months. The total number of emergency admissions for the 20 patients was 43.

35 of these 43 emergencies were admitted to hospital because of treatment side effects. Of these:

30 were due to chemotherapy
2 were due to radiotherapy
3 were due to immunotherapy

38 admissions went to a cancer (oncology) ward:

35 of these were directly admitted to the cancer ward
3 of these were indirectly admitted by way of the hospital’s emergency department

Interviews

15 cancer patients and 12 carers were interviewed.

Most patients were admitted to a cancer ward and reported their experience of staying in hospital was outstanding because:

the reason for their admission was dealt with quickly and effectively
their care in hospital and long term care was continuous and organised
the communication between them and the hospital staff was satisfactory
information about their care was shared
the staff were motivated and skilled
visiting hours were more open

A few patients were admitted to a ward that didn’t specialise in cancer. They reported their experience as being unsatisfactory because:

they had to wait longer to be admitted
they couldn’t have their medications when they were supposed to, and this affected their cancer care in the long term
visiting times were more rigid
their needs were unmet because of unsatisfactory levels of care

Conclusion

The study team concluded that future work should focus on:

improving access to specialist advice
improving how emergency departments handle cancer patients with emergencies
improving the process of admission
providing rapid relief from their symptoms and the side effects of treatment
providing satisfactory levels of care in hospital
involving all healthcare professionals and healthcare services to provide a seamless circle of care to address the complex needs of cancer patients and their carers

The study team have also interviewed healthcare professionals in the hospital. They asked them about their experiences of emergency admissions for cancer patients with a confirmed cancer diagnosis. They also asked their opinions about how to reduce and manage these admissions.

When these results are published we will update this summary.

Where this information comes from

We have based this summary on information from the research team. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed Open a glossary item

) and published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the trial team who did the research. We have not analysed the data ourselves.