Regions like Algarve particularly blighted by lack of palliative care units
Almost half (48%) of the patients referred last year to palliative care units contracted with the private or social sector died before being offered a place, concludes an analysis by the Health Regulatory Authority (ERS).
The ERS report, released today, highlights the lack of supply of these units in the Centre and Algarve regions and notes that 77% of them are in the Lisbon and Tejo Valley region.
It also concludes that the adjusted bed rate per 1,000,000 inhabitants is “below the threshold recommended by the European Association for Palliative Care”, which varies between 80 and 100, covering both hospital and long-term care settings.
Regarding supply, only the Alentejo has a palliative care offer above the minimum recommended threshold.
The National Palliative Care Network (RNCP) includes two types of Palliative Care Inpatient Units (UCP): hospital UCPs, which provide palliative care to patients with serious and/or advanced and progressive illnesses who require hospitalisation, and UCPs – RNCCI (National Network of Integrated Continuing Care), which are contracted with social or private sector entities and provide care in situations of low to moderate complexity.
“Given that the nature of palliative care provided in each type of UCP is differentiated by clinical complexity, there may still be a problem of access to palliative care for users in need of low-complexity palliative care, particularly in the health regions of the Centre and Algarve,” says the ERS.
The monitoring carried out by the regulator, which analyses data between 2021 and 2023, focused on access to UCP-RNCCI “due to the impossibility of obtaining complete and systematised information on other types of care integrated into the RNCP”, the document states.
Of users referred to UCP-RNCCI in 2023, more than one in three (37%) were in SNS units (meaning hospitals). Around 48% of users referred during this period “were not admitted due to death before admission”, the report concludes.
The average waiting time for admission for patients referred in 2022 and 2023 was less than a month: those who were referred and admitted in 2022 waited an average of 20 days, and in 2023, this figure rose to 21 days.
“Patients who died – who represent the largest proportion of referred patients – spent an average of 12 days waiting for a vacancy in the two years analysed,” says the regulator.
ERS also concluded that more than one in 10 (12%) patients referred and admitted in 2023 lived more than an hour’s journey from the unit where they were admitted.
Today’s report equally shows that for the period between 2021 and 2023, there were 14 UCP-RNCCI – a number that has remained the same for the three years in question (in spite of needs clearly being for more).
Source material: LUSA
