Needs assessment: a tool for hospice expansion

This article outlines the strategies adopted by a voluntary hospice to identify the local needs for hospice care, and summarizes the needs assessment findings. Since the advent of specialist palliative hospice inpatient services, only a small proportion of dying patients have been admitted to hospices. Recent UK government initiatives have promised extra or equalized funding and perhaps a widening of the criteria for admission. The work reported here was based on Stevens and Raftery's (1997) protocol for needs assessment and Higginson's (1997) review of the components of health care needs in palliative and terminal care. These were used to identify local requirements and provide evidence for expansion of the hospice and the services it provides to the local health economy.