Avoiding hospital admission in COPD: impact of a specialist nursing team.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common, preventable and incurable disease. The costs of caring for patients with COPD is estimated to be more than £800 million a year for acute hospital admissions alone ( Department of Health, 2012 ). The hospital-at-home model is increasingly being adopted for COPD patients following British Thoracic Society (BTS) guidelines for the delivery of hospital admission-avoidance schemes ( BTS, 2007 ).

COPD: criteria to assist in the identification of the palliative phase.

For people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), hospital admission can be associated with a poor prognosis. Consequently, the end stage of the illness needs to be recognized for timely palliative care to be initiated. Tools to enhance the palliative phase such as the Gold Standards Framework and the Liverpool Care Pathway rely on the recognition of the final phase of a person's life.

Developing criteria to assist in the palliative phase of COPD.

For people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), hospital admission can be associated with a poor prognosis. Consequently, the end-stage of the illness needs to be recognized for timely palliative care to be initiated. Tools to enhance the palliative phase, such as the Gold Standards Framework and the Liverpool Care Pathway, rely on the recognition of the final phase of a person's life.