Specialist nursing care enables more people at end of life to die at home and reduces hospital treatment, study finds

People at the end of the life who receive specialist nursing care at home are more than twice as likely to die at home rather than hospital and three times less likely to need hospital care as those who get standard care, a study of nearly 60 000 patients has found.1

The study, which was conducted by the Nuffield Trust on behalf of Marie Curie Cancer Care, looked at the experiences of 29 538 people at the end of life who received specialist care from the Marie Curie nursing service and the same number of matched controls, who may have received other nursing care.

It found that 77% …