Between 2015 and 2024, the number of palliative care services participating in PCOC nearly doubled from 104 to 202 services, with a similar rate of growth observed for patients (from 36,300 to 72,400) and episodes of care (48,300 to 95,500). The growth in palliative care phases was not as steep (from 114,500 to 211,000) (Figure 3).
Between 2015 and 2024, most outcome measures remained relatively stable over this period, with some notable exceptions (Figure 3):
- patients remaining with absent/mild symptoms at the end of the phase for distress from fatigue increased rapidly between 2015-2017 (from 76% to 84%), and has since continued to increase slowly, reaching 88% in 2024
- patients moving from moderate/severe to absent/mild symptoms at the end of the phase has increased for: distress from fatigue (from 33% to 50%; benchmark 3.6), breathing problems (from 39% to 52%; benchmark 3.8) and family/care problems (from 42% to 54%; benchmark 3.10).
Note that comparisons of outcome measures over time should be interpreted with caution, as these outcome measures may be affected by compositional changes in the population. For example, changes in the services participating in PCOC over the same period.
