Results have been found from a survey and they have uncovered the fact that a lot of nurses and doctors have indicated that the backlog of patients has led to a lot of premature deaths. The APM has carried out a poll, using people who have come through a nurse agency or in some instances, a nursing recruitment agency to try and understand the devastating impact on those who have an illness. This also included older people, such as carers or those who are working in care jobs. The assessment was done over two months, ranging from December to January. Those who responded were made up of various APM members, including nurse specialists as well as consultants. It also included junior doctors and speciality doctors.
The overall results showed that over 86% of people agreed that people are becoming terminally ill, needlessly, because they are either getting a late diagnosis or because they are experiencing incredible delays.
End-of-life charities, which happen to include Marie Curie have partnered up with APM to try and help them with the survey. They have called for a lot of amendments to be made and they have also asked that the Health and Care bill be debated differently so that NHS teams can provide palliative care services all across England. When you look at the combination of the steep gaps in palliative care to the fact that more and more people are being terminally ill you will soon see that major issues are happening and that it is impossible to carry on this way. More needs to be done to try and make sure that people get the support that they need and this is going to make a difference to the numbers we are seeing now.