Skip to main content
Primary Care Respiratory Journal: Journal of the General Practice Airways Group logoLink to Primary Care Respiratory Journal: Journal of the General Practice Airways Group
editorial
. 2006 Dec 1;15(6):362–364. doi: 10.1016/j.pcrj.2006.08.008

Palliative care for people with COPD: we need to meet the challenge

Scott A Murray 1,*, Hilary Pinnock 1, Aziz Sheikh 1
PMCID: PMC6730838  PMID: 17064964

Abstract

The need to extend the palliative care approach to people dying with a wide range of chronic diseases is increasingly recognised. Whilst of relevance internationally, this topic is particularly timely in the UK as the General Medical Services contract will reward practices that create a register of patients “in need of palliative/supportive care”. Difficulty predicting prognosis can lead to uncertainty about which patients with COPD to include in a register, potentially reducing the impact of this initiative. In this Discussion paper we highlight this challenge, and offer some practical strategies to help clinicians recognise these patients.

Keywords: COPD, Palliative care, Disease register

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (349.5 KB).


Articles from Primary Care Respiratory Journal: Journal of the General Practice Airways Group are provided here courtesy of Primary Care Respiratory Society UK/Macmillan Publishers Limited

RESOURCES