To determine the percentage of patients accessing specialist palliative care inpatient beds within seven days. This is the calculation of the number of patients who were admitted to a specialist palliative care inpatient bed within seven days of receipt of referral expressed as a percentage of the total number of patients admitted in the reporting month. The services submit the number of patients admitted within seven days and the total number of patients admitted in the reporting month, the percentage is calculated by the Business Intelligence Unit.

Wait time to admission is calculated in calendar days from the date of receipt of referral to the date of admission to the specialist palliative care inpatient unit. Each day (inclusive of weekends and bank holidays) that the patient waits to be admitted is counted, with wait times categorised as follows: 0-7 days; 8-14 days; 15-28 days; greater than 28 days. When a referred patient is offered a specialist palliative care bed but, due to external factors, is unable to be admitted, the count of the wait time is paused until the patient becomes available for admission. It is possible that the same patient can be referred twice to the service during the reporting month. Each episode of care is to be counted in the data return.

A count of the number of patients admitted to a specialist inpatient bed within seven days of assessment/request for transfer and expressed as a proportion of the overall number of patients admitted to specialist inpatient beds in the reporting period and multiply by 100.

The overall number of patients admitted to specialist inpatient beds in the reporting period.

Reporting is aggregated at the national, Community Healthcare Organisation (CHO), Local Health Office (LHO) and institution level.

Data collected to support these indicators are a combination of collecting primary data and data from national data collectors in the LHOS/CHOs. Data is sourced by the specialist palliative care units who forward to their Community Healthcare Organisation (CHO). The CHO submits the validated data to the Business Information Unit (BIU) Community Healthcare Team Data on a monthly basis via excel. The activity data reported is based on Performance Activity and Key Performance Indicators outlined in the National Service Plan 2022 and the HSE Operational Plans 2022. The Performance Report is overseen by the National Planning Oversight Group (NPOG), led by the Chief Operations Officer on behalf of the CEO. NPOG monitors performance against planned activity, as outlined in the National Service Plan, and highlights areas for improvement. A Management Data Report is also produced each month which provides more detailed data on the Metrics covered in the Performance Report.

Public reporting.

www.hse.ie/eng/services/publications/performancereports/ www.hse.ie/eng/services/publications/kpis/2024-palliative-care-services-nsp-metadata.pdf www.hiqa.ie/areas-we-work/health-information/data-collections/hse-performance-reports-palliative-care

Unable to locate full specifications. Some details are available here: www.hse.ie/eng/services/publications/kpis/2024-palliative-care-services-nsp-metadata.pdf