£7,400 ... the NHS bill for a patient’s last year of life
DYING patients who need hospital treatment in England cost the NHS an average of £7,415 each, a research group said yesterday.
The bill covers care over the last year of life, but most of it is spent on emergency admission and treatment in the final month, it found.
The Nuffield Trust put the total cost to hospitals and social services of looking after dying patients at £5billion a year, with nearly two thirds of the bill falling to the NHS.
The report – based on the care of 73,000 people – comes amid controversy over the way hospitals routinely withdraw treatment from patients judged to be dying and claims that the cost of caring is one of the reasons.
The Nuffield report said nearly nine out of ten people in their last months of life go into hospital.
Nuffield research chief Dr Martin Bardsley said: ‘People are very vulnerable in the last months of their lives and achieving appropriate and well-coordinated care across health and social care is critical.
‘Given the financial climate, this type of analysis is critical now more than ever if more value for patients is to be extracted from public funds.’