Responding to urgency of need: Initial qualitative stage in the development of a triage tool for use in palliative care services:

Background:Palliative care services face the challenge of a workload increasing in volume and diversity. An evidence-based triage method to assess urgency of palliative care needs is required to ensure equitable, efficient and transparent allocation of specialist resources when managing waiting lists.Aim:As the initial stage of a mixed-method sequential design, this study aimed to explore palliative care providers’ practices and attitudes towards triaging palliative care needs and their views regarding the implementation of a standardised approach.Design:A qualitative study was conducted involving focus groups and interviews. Transcripts were subjected to deductive thematic analysis.Setting/Participants:A total of 20 palliative care providers were purposively sampled to ensure representation across disciplines (primary, specialist; medicine, nursing and allied health), service types (inpatient, hospital liaison and community) and locations (metropolitan and rural).Results:A series of markers of urgency we...