CovPall: Palliative care for those with COVID-19 (v1.0) [COVID-19]
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Rapid evaluation of the COVID-19 pandemic response in palliative and end of life care: international delivery, workforce and symptom management (CovPall)
IRAS ID
282824
Contact name
Irene Higginson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN16561225
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
The COVID-19 pandemic is placing an unprecedented strain on health services, with an estimated 1-4% of people dying from this new disease. \n\nSome of the symptoms, such as breathlessness, fever, agitation and pain, are very distressing. But in this new disease, how to care for people and manage their symptoms, especially in advanced illness, is not well understood. \n\nPalliative care is interdisciplinary holistic care that aims to identify and treat symptoms, optimize quality of life, mitigate suffering among people affected by serious, complex illness, including at the end of life and offers bereavement support for families. Specialist palliative care services, such as hospital teams, home care teams and hospices services are adapting rapidly to the COVID-19 pandemic and are playing a major role in the response. But they are responding in different ways, not knowing what is best. The palliative response has often been overlooked in prior planning for pandemics, but is important because people do become ill and die. \n\nThis research aims to rapidly evaluate the palliative care response in COVID-19 to improve care now and in the future. \n\nThere are two main components, called workpackages, to the research. \n\nWorkpackage 1 (WP1) will survey palliative care medical or nursing leads, about their changes in practice, how they use the workforce and volunteers and what symptom management is working. WP1 will be both UK wide and international.\n\nWorkpackage 2 (WP2) collects data about patients’ symptoms, how they change over time, and the effectiveness of treatments. WP2 is only UK wide.\n\nWe will collect this information immediately and quickly, and then repeat the data collection after 6-8 weeks to understand how practice is changing. \n\nWe involve patients, families, the public, policy makers and services in all stages of the research and will release early findings to them, to help catalyse an effective response. \n \n\n
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/NW/0259
Date of REC Opinion
14 May 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion