Developing primary palliative care: Completion of community palliative care management form should be mandatory

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7481.42

BMJ 2005;330:42 (1 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7481.42

Letter

Developing primary palliative care

Completion of community palliative care management form should be mandatory

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Murray et al propose that people with terminalconditions should be able to die at home with dignity.¹ Theyfall short of initiating a practical, pragmatic, less idealistic,cost neutral solution.

Once a patient has been identified as requiring palliative careby their criterion "Would I be surprised if my patient wereto die in the next 12 months?" a simple procedure should compulsorilytake place. A form detailing palliative care management shouldbe completed by the patient's general practitioner. This formshould include details of the diagnosis, prognosis, and managementplans and be emailed or faxed to the out of hours provider—the"unscheduled care services" to which the editorial refers. Additionally,any scheduled drugs that may be required to keep the patientat home should be prescribed and delivered to the patient'shome. If these two simple procedures became part of a nationalplan, many (not all) . . . [Full text of this article]

Julia Riley, consultant in palliative medicine

Royal Marsden Hospital, London SW3 6JJ Julia.Riley@rmh.nhs.uk

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