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Commentary on: Elmokhallalati Y, Woodhouse N, Farragher T, et al. Specialist palliative care support is associated with improved pain relief at home during the last 3 months of life in patients with advanced disease: analysis of 5-year data from the national survey of bereaved people (VOICES). BMC Med 2019. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-019-1287-8.
Implications for practice and research
People who receive specialist palliative care or have a stated preference to die at home have a significantly higher chance of experiencing good pain relief as they die, irrespective of their disease aetiology.
People dying with cancer receive better pain relief than those dying of non-cancer disease.
Access to specialist palliative care services and advance care planning should be available to all; irrespective of diagnosis.
Researchers and policymakers should consider how to ensure improvements in pain management for patients at home through advice and support from community specialist palliative care services.
Context
Pain is …
Footnotes
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.