On 2017 Jul 07, Cicely Saunders Institute Journal Club commented:

The Cicely Saunders Institute journal club reviewed this paper on Wednesday 5th July 2017. We enjoyed discussing this paper and felt that the authors had addressed an important area, especially with the increasing importance on how we coordinate services at the end-of-life. The authors provided detailed information about the settings, which was useful in understanding the context in which the data was collected. Additionally, the authors provide an allied health professional perspective, highlighting the difference that can be made by changes to the environment and equipment.

We felt that the authors could have applied a theoretical framework to strengthen understanding of the proposed topic and their findings, such as Andersen’s healthcare utilisation model. We were interested in their focus on patient, carer and professional views, but felt that these could have benefitted from triangulation in the narrative of the paper.

The authors highlighted many interesting aspects (tipping points for carers, how patients will manage increased risk to be able to stay home), we would have liked supplementary materials to explore these further, as the authors collected such a wealth of data from both interviews and observations.

Commentary by Sophie Pask and Dr Catherine Evans

On 2017 Jul 07, Cicely Saunders Institute Journal Club commented:

The Cicely Saunders Institute journal club reviewed this paper on Wednesday 5th July 2017. We enjoyed discussing this paper and felt that the authors had addressed an important area, especially with the increasing importance on how we coordinate services at the end-of-life. The authors provided detailed information about the settings, which was useful in understanding the context in which the data was collected. Additionally, the authors provide an allied health professional perspective, highlighting the difference that can be made by changes to the environment and equipment.

We felt that the authors could have applied a theoretical framework to strengthen understanding of the proposed topic and their findings, such as Andersen’s healthcare utilisation model. We were interested in their focus on patient, carer and professional views, but felt that these could have benefitted from triangulation in the narrative of the paper.

The authors highlighted many interesting aspects (tipping points for carers, how patients will manage increased risk to be able to stay home), we would have liked supplementary materials to explore these further, as the authors collected such a wealth of data from both interviews and observations.

Commentary by Sophie Pask and Dr Catherine Evans