Current estimates suggest that approximately 75% of people approaching the end-of-life may benefit from palliative care. The growing numbers of older people and increasing prevalence of chronic illness in many countries mean that more people may benefit from palliative care in the future, but this has not been quantified. The present study aims to estimate future population palliative care need in two high-income countries. We used mortality statistics for England and Wales from 2006 to 2014. Building on previous diagnosis-based approaches, we calculated age- and sex-specific proportions of deaths from defined chronic progressive illnesses to estimate the prevalence of palliative care need in the population. We calculated annual change over the 9-year period. Using explicit assumptions about change in disease prevalence over time, and official mortality forecasts, we modelled palliative care need up to 2040. We also undertook separate projections for dementia, cancer and organ failure. By 2040, annual deaths in England and Wales are projected to rise by 25.4% (from 501,424 in 2014 to 628,659). If age- and sex-specific proportions with palliative care needs remain the same as in 2014, the number of people requiring palliative care will grow by 25.0% (from 375,398 to 469,305 people/year). However, if the upward trend observed from 2006 to 2014 continues, the increase will be of 42.4% (161,842 more people/year, total 537,240). In addition, disease-specific projections show that dementia (increase from 59,199 to 219,409 deaths/year by 2040) and cancer (increase from 143,638 to 208,636 deaths by 2040) will be the main drivers of increased need. If recent mortality trends continue, 160,000 more people in England and Wales will need palliative care by 2040. Healthcare systems must now start to adapt to the age-related growth in deaths from chronic illness, by focusing on integration and boosting of palliative care across health and social care disciplines. Countries with similar demographic and disease changes will likely experience comparable rises in need.

Patients with advanced cancer experience a complex web of problems, all of which interact. Specialist palliative care services have developed to meet these needs, but their effectiveness should be considered. We sought to determine whether specialist palliative care teams achieve their aims and improve outcomes for patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers, in terms of improving symptoms and quality of life and/or reducing the emotional concerns of family caregivers. We conducted a systematic review, searching standard databases augmented by reference lists of earlier reviews. The review focused on specialist (ie, with trained and dedicated professionals) palliative care in the home, hospital, or designated inpatient settings for patients with cancer. Outcomes were pain, symptoms, quality of life, use of hospital services, and anxiety. Studies were excluded if they did not test specialist palliative care services. We identified 8 randomized controlled trials and 32 observational or quasi-experimental studies. Overall, the evidence demonstrated that home, hospital, and inpatient specialist palliative care significantly improved patient outcomes in the domains of pain and symptom control, anxiety, and reduced hospital admissions. The results suggest that specialist palliative care should be part of care for cancer patients. Although the appraisal of evidence found improvements across domains, there is a need to understand better the effects of different models of palliative care and to use standardized outcome measurement.

Despite being a core business of medicine, end of life care (EoLC) is neglected. It is hampered by research that is difficult to conduct with no common standards. We aimed to develop evidence-based guidance on the best methods for the design and conduct of research on EoLC to further knowledge in the field.

Background: Palliative care patients are often described as complex but evidence on complexity is limited. We need to understand complexity, including at individual patient-level, to define specialist palliative care, characterise palliative care populations and meaningfully compare interventions/outcomes. Aim: To explore palliative care stakeholders’ views on what makes a patient more or less complex and insights on capturing complexity at patient-level. Design: In-depth qualitative interviews, analysed using Framework analysis. Participants/setting: Semi-structured interviews across six UK centres with patients, family, professionals, managers and senior leads, purposively sampled by experience, background, location and setting (hospital, hospice and community). Results: 65 participants provided an understanding of complexity, which extended far beyond the commonly used physical, psychological, social and spiritual domains. Complexity included how patients interact with family/professionals, how services’ respond to needs and societal perspectives on care. ‘Pre-existing’, ‘cumulative’ and ‘invisible’ complexity are further important dimensions to delivering effective palliative and end-of-life care. The dynamic nature of illness and needs over time was also profoundly influential. Adapting Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, we categorised findings into the microsystem (person, needs and characteristics), chronosystem (dynamic influences of time), mesosystem (interactions with family/health professionals), exosystem (palliative care services/systems) and macrosystem (societal influences). Stakeholders found it acceptable to capture complexity at the patient-level, with perceived benefits for improving palliative care resource allocation. Conclusion: Our conceptual framework encompasses additional elements beyond physical, psychological, social and spiritual domains and advances systematic understanding of complexity within the context of palliative care. This framework helps capture patient-level complexity and target resource provision in specialist palliative care.

Centenarians are a rapidly growing demographic group worldwide, yet their health and social care needs are seldom considered. This study aims to examine trends in place of death and associations for centenarians in England over 10 years to consider policy implications of extreme longevity. This is a population-based observational study using death registration data linked with area-level indices of multiple deprivations for people aged ≥100 years who died 2001 to 2010 in England, compared with those dying at ages 80-99. We used linear regression to examine the time trends in number of deaths and place of death, and Poisson regression to evaluate factors associated with centenarians’ place of death. The cohort totalled 35,867 people with a median age at death of 101 years (range: 100–115 years). Centenarian deaths increased 56% (95% CI 53.8%–57.4%) in 10 years. Most died in a care home with (26.7%, 95% CI 26.3%–27.2%) or without nursing (34.5%, 95% CI 34.0%–35.0%) or in hospital (27.2%, 95% CI 26.7%–27.6%). The proportion of deaths in nursing homes decreased over 10 years (−0.36% annually, 95% CI −0.63% to −0.09%, p = 0.014), while hospital deaths changed little (0.25% annually, 95% CI −0.06% to 0.57%, p = 0.09). Dying with frailty was common with “old age” stated in 75.6% of death certifications. Centenarians were more likely to die of pneumonia (e.g., 17.7% [95% CI 17.3%–18.1%] versus 6.0% [5.9%–6.0%] for those aged 80–84 years) and old age/frailty (28.1% [27.6%–28.5%] versus 0.9% [0.9%–0.9%] for those aged 80–84 years) and less likely to die of cancer (4.4% [4.2%–4.6%] versus 24.5% [24.6%–25.4%] for those aged 80–84 years) and ischemic heart disease (8.6% [8.3%–8.9%] versus 19.0% [18.9%–19.0%] for those aged 80–84 years) than were younger elderly patients. More care home beds available per 1,000 population were associated with fewer deaths in hospital (PR 0.98, 95% CI 0.98–0.99, p<0.001). Centenarians are more likely to have causes of death certified as pneumonia and frailty and less likely to have causes of death of cancer or ischemic heart disease, compared with younger elderly patients. To reduce reliance on hospital care at the end of life requires recognition of centenarians’ increased likelihood to “acute” decline, notably from pneumonia, and wider provision of anticipatory care to enable people to remain in their usual residence, and increasing care home bed capacity. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary People who live to be more than 100 years old—centenarians—are congratulated and honored in many countries. In the UK, for example, the Queen sends a personal greeting to individuals on their 100th birthday. The number of UK residents who reach this notable milestone is increasing steadily, roughly doubling every 10 years. The latest Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures indicate that 13,350 centenarians were living in the UK in 2012 (20 centenarians per 100,000 people in the population) compared to only 7,740 in 2002. If current trends continue, by 2066 there may be more than half a million centenarians living in the UK. And similar increases in the numbers of centenarians are being seen in many other countries. The exact number of centenarians living worldwide is uncertain but is thought to be around 317,000 and is projected to rise to about 18 million by the end of this century. Traditional blessings often include the wish that the blessing’s recipient lives to be at least 100 years old. However, extreme longevity is associated with increasing frailty—declining physical function, increasing disability, and increasing vulnerability to a poor clinical outcome following, for example, an infection. Consequently, many centenarians require 24-hour per day care in a nursing home or a residential care home. Moreover, although elderly people, including centenarians, generally prefer to die in a home environment rather than a clinical environment, many centenarians end up dying in a hospital. To ensure that centenarians get their preferred end-of-life care, policy makers and clinicians need to know as much as possible about the health and social needs of this specific and unique group of elderly people. In this population-based observational study, the researchers examine trends in the place of death and factors associated with the place of death among centenarians in England over a 10-year period. The researchers extracted information about the place and cause of death of centenarians in England between 2001 and 2010 from the ONS death registration database, linked these data with area level information on deprivation and care-home bed capacity, and analyzed the data statistically. Over the 10-year study period, 35,867 centenarians (mainly women, average age 101 years) died in England. The annual number of centenarian deaths increased from 2,823 in 2001 to 4,393 in 2010. Overall, three-quarters of centenarian death certificates stated “old age” as the cause of death. About a quarter of centenarians died in the hospital, a quarter died in a nursing home, and a third died in a care home without nursing; only one in ten centenarians died at home. The proportion of deaths in a nursing home increased slightly over the study period but there was little change in the number of hospital deaths. Compared with younger age groups (80–84 year olds), centenarians were more likely to die from pneumonia and “old age” and less likely to die from cancer and heart disease. Among centenarians, dying in the hospital was more likely to be reported to be associated with pneumonia or heart disease than with dementia; death in the hospital was also associated with having four or more contributing causes of death and with living in a deprived area. Finally, living in an area with a higher care-home bed capacity was associated with a lower risk of dying in the hospital. These findings suggest that many centenarians have outlived death from the chronic diseases that are the common causes of death among younger groups of elderly people and that dying in the hospital is often associated with pneumonia. Overall, these findings suggest that centenarians are a group of people living with a risk of death from increasing frailty that is exacerbated by acute lung infection. The accuracy of these findings is likely to be affected by the quality of UK death certification data. Although this is generally high, the strength of some of the reported associations may be affected, for example, by the tendency of clinicians to record the cause of death in the very elderly as “old age” to provide some comfort to surviving relatives. Importantly, however, these findings suggest that care-home capacity and the provision of anticipatory care should be increased in England (and possibly in other countries) to ensure that more of the growing number of centenarians can end their long lives outside hospital. Please access these websites via the online version of this summary at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001653.