Table 1.

A ‘Yes, Maybe, No’ approach for job planning for specialist palliative care healthcare professionals during pandemics and other healthcare emergencies.

Category	Yes	Maybe	No
Description	‘Specialist palliative care’ – activities related to specialist training	‘General medical care’ – activities related to general medical training	Non-essential ‘usual’ activities
Examples	Symptom control – difficult cases End-of-life care – difficult cases Education and training – symptom control, end-of-life care [Audit and research]	Medical management of patients [Decision making around escalation de-escalation] [Breaking ‘bad news’]	Generally non-clinical activities
Role of other healthcare professionals / other staff	Many activities can be shared within specialist palliative care teams Some activities can be delegated to other healthcare professionals (with appropriate training/support)	Medical management overseen by medical/support teams (eg ITU team).	Some activities can be delegated to administrative staff and/or volunteers Apply ‘3-D’ approach: Ditch – the activity doesn't need doing at all Delay – the activity needs doing, but it doesn't need doing now Delegate – the activity needs doing now
Population of patients	Pandemic patients: patients for escalation (full, limited) patients not for escalation ‘Normal’ palliative care patients	Pandemic patients (‘Normal’ palliative care patients)	(‘Normal’ palliative care patients)