A survey of hospice day services in the United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland : how did hospices offer social support to palliative care patients, pre-pandemic?

Bradley, NM, Dowrick, CF and Lloyd-Williams, M (2022) A survey of hospice day services in the United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland : how did hospices offer social support to palliative care patients, pre-pandemic? BMC Palliative Care, 21 (1). ISSN 1472-684X

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Abstract

Introduction
Social support is described by patients and other stakeholders to be a valuable component of palliative day care. Less is known about the range of hospice services that have been used in practice that facilitate social support. An online survey aimed to gain an overview of all hospice day services that facilitated social support for adults outside of their own homes.

Methods
An online survey was distributed via email to people involved in managing hospice day services. Questions were asked on hospice characteristics, including staff and volunteer roles. Respondents were asked to identify services they felt offered social support to patients. Data collection took place between August 2017 and May 2018.

Results
Responses were received from 103 hospices in the UK and ROI (response rate 49.5%). Results provide an overview of hospice day and outpatient services that offer social support to patients. These are: multi-component interventions, activity groups, formal support groups, befriending, and informal social activities. Multi-component interventions, such as palliative day care, were the most commonly reported. Their stated aims tend to focus on clinical aspects, but many survey respondents considered these multicomponent interventions to be the ‘most social’ service at their hospice. The survey also identified a huge variety of activity groups, as well as formal therapeutic support groups. Informal ‘social-only’ activities were present, but less common. Over a third of all the services were described as ‘drop in’. Most responding hospices did not routinely use patient reported outcome measures in their ‘most social’ services.

Conclusions
The survey documents hospice activity in facilitating social support to be diverse and evolving. At the time of data collection, many hospices offered multiple different services by which a patient might obtain social support outside of their own home and in the presence of other patients.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	hospice day services; palliative care; social support; hospice day services; palliative care; social support; Humans; Palliative Care; Hospice Care; Social Support; Adult; Hospices; Ireland; Pandemics; Surveys and Questionnaires; United Kingdom; hospice day services; palliative care; social support; Adult; Hospice Care; Hospices; Humans; Ireland; Palliative Care; Pandemics; Social Support; Surveys and Questionnaires; United Kingdom; 4203 Health Services and Systems; 42 Health Sciences; Clinical Research; Behavioral and Social Science; Social Determinants of Health; Health Services; Generic health relevance; Adult; Hospice Care; Hospices; Humans; Ireland; Palliative Care; Pandemics; Social Support; Surveys and Questionnaires; United Kingdom; 1110 Nursing; 1117 Public Health and Health Services; Gerontology; 4203 Health services and systems; 4205 Nursing
Subjects:	R Medicine > RT Nursing
Divisions:	Nursing and Advanced Practice
Publisher:	Springer
Date of acceptance:	15 September 2022
Date of first compliant Open Access:	27 July 2026
Date Deposited:	27 Jul 2026 13:13
Last Modified:	27 Jul 2026 13:13
DOI or ID number:	10.1186/s12904-022-01061-9
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/29069

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