Sage Palliative Medicine & Chronic Care

This episode features Sarah Combes (Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care, King's College London, UK).   Older people living with frailty are projected to become one of the largest future users of palliative care. Advance care planning can improve person centred end of life care. However advance care planning is relatively uncommon in frail elders due to many challenges. This review aimed to understand how advance care planning could be better implemented in frail elder population, and to develop a conceptual model to underpin future development. The study concluded that a system wide approach is needed that recognised the importance of living well now, relationships and early engagement. All stakeholders have educational needs; specifically clinicians need to be given the opportunity to develop skills and competencies to recognise, proactively use and create advance care planning opportunities at the end of life.     Full paper available from: https://journals.sagepub.com