Accessibility statement

Place of Death

Although deaths in childhood have been decreasing there are still 4500 infants and children who die in England and Wales every year. Therefore, end of life care is a very important component of children’s palliative care. Place of death has been used in policy documentation as a measure of quality of palliative or end of life care in developed countries such as the UK. The assumption that everyone wants to die at home has been contested in both children’s and adult palliative care in recent years.  However, at a population level, if we are truly able to offer choice then we should see a distribution between the possible places of death. In the new service specification for palliative care for children and young people from NHS England, one of the aims is that ‘More children and young people will achieve their preferred place of care at the end of their lives’. The distribution of deaths between hospital, home and hospice therefore provides an indication of the degree to which families are able to access palliative care.

This study aims to assess the trends in place of death for children who died with a life-limiting condition in England and the clinical and demographic factors which are associated with death in the community (home or hospice) rather than hospital.

Link below to the study information leaflet:-

Where Children with LLCs Die (PDF , 77kb)

Dates

Start Date: January 2020
End Date: December 2020