This episode features Dr Gursharan K Singh (Centre for Healthcare Transformation, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, QLD, Australia).
What is already known about the topic:
- The degree to which individuals access and use palliative and end-of-life care services varies across communities and countries.
What this paper adds:
- This study found that the South Asian community (in Bradford, UK) are currently not ready to engage with palliative and end-of-life care services despite local initiatives to improve awareness. They are at the “pre-planning stage” (see Table 1) about end-of-life care options and of the services that are available to them.
- This study also found evidence that the services that aim to support people from minoritised ethnic communities at the end-of-life are not ready to address ethnic inequities.
- Such services were found to have: (i) a narrow focus during advance care planning, (ii) poor integration of voluntary and community services (iii) and limited understanding of what a good death looks like for people from different cultural and religious backgrounds.
Implications for practice, theory or policy:
- This study highlights the importance of assessing the degree to which both the community and the health and social care systems are ready to incorporate new initiatives so they are effective and successful in addressing (and not strengthening) existing inequities.
Full paper available from:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02692163221146587
If you would like to record a podcast about your published (or accepted) Palliative Medicine paper, please contact Dr Amara Nwosu: a.nwosu@lancaster.ac.uk