The project is being led by Professor Sheila Payne and Professor Katherine Froggatt from Lancaster University, and aims to recruit fifty care homes, residential and nursing, across England.

The study will compare care homes in countries with formal palliative care structures to care homes in countries without palliative care structures across the EU. Information will be collected on all residents that have died in the care homes over the past three months and will look at: 

• patient outcomes; such as quality of life, quality of death and quality of palliative care,
• the characteristics of the care home; such as number of beds and services offered,
• care home staff knowledge, practices and attitudes in relation to end of life care

Care homes that agree to take part in the study will be asked to identify a contact person, such as a matron, who will be visited by a member of the research team. At the visit the contact person will be asked to complete two questionnaires and provided with three information packs to send out to the deceased residents’ nurse/professional care giver most closely involved in the residents care at the care home, their GP and their closest relative or friend. The visit should last around one hour and care homes that take part in the study will receive full support from the research team.

The research is funded by the EU FP7 Seventh Framework Programme and is being conducted in six countries: Belgium, Finland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and the UK.

Further information about the study is available at pace@lancaster.ac.uk

Professor Sheila Payne (second from right) with her team: Dr Katherine Froggatt (left), Dr Jo Hockley (second from left) and Dr Hazel Morbey, at the launch of the new PACE research project.