An interesting paper in Palliative Medicine, reanalysing the British Household Survey to find that while 90% of people in the last year of life saw a primary care professional and a third spent time in hospital, more a third reported financial strain in their lives. The proportion receiving attendance allowance (payable to people over 65) was low compared with wider studies. The suggestion is that primary care professionals could have pointed more people at benefits they were entitled to. I see this as an example of the failure of healthcare services to integrate their social care responsibilities properly into their roles. Social benefits and social care are not just someone else’s responsibility.

Hanratty, B., Jacoby, A. and Whitehead, M. (2008) Socioeconomic differences in service use, payment and receipt of illness-related benefits in the last year of life: findings from the British Household Panel Survey. Palliative Medicine. 22: 248-55.

Pics of the rebuilding at St Christopher’s, now under way, in solidarity with all colleagues working through a difficult time, to make things better in the future:
The Chapel is moving (God moves in mysterious…)