Palliative care inpatient needs: supportive and palliative care indicator tool survey in Kenya

Palliative care needs may be present in up to 40% of patients in hospitals in Africa, but it is reported that few patients are receiving any palliative care, although the WHO call for integration of palliative care in all health service settings.1 We therefore conducted a census in a large rural hospital in Kenya managed by the Presbyterian Church of East Africa to identify what percentage of patients might benefit from palliative care, their diagnoses and what percentage were actually receiving palliative care at the time. A resident doctor at a large faith-based hospital in Kenya on 9 November 2022 reviewed the electronic medical records of all the patients in the medical and surgical wards on that day using the Supportive and Palliative care Indicator Tool adapted to low income settings (SPICT-LIS) to identify patients who would benefit from a palliative care approach. © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.