Aims
This study aimed to identify what proportion of people diagnosed with cancer in Western Australia (WA) have an unplanned presentation to hospital, primarily for allied health care, in the first year after a cancer diagnosis and what care they required.

Methods
All people in WA diagnosed with a primary invasive cancer in 2009 were identified from the WA Cancer Registry. People diagnosed with a non-malignant skin cancer were excluded. The WA Data Linkage Unit provided records on all eligible people from the Cancer Registry, Death Registry, Emergency Department Data Collection and Hospital Morbidity Data Collection. The data requested was for the period of the 1st January 2009 until the 31st December 2010 to identify episodes of care up to one year after cancer diagnosis. Data were analysed using descriptive and multinomial logistic regression methods.

Results
10,858 Western Australians (58.1% male, median age 66 years) were diagnosed with a new primary cancer in 2009. There were 1,655 allied health unplanned admissions, which was 2.4% of all admissions and 15.7% of unplanned admissions. People requiring an admission for allied health services were older (t=-15.20, p>0.00) and less likely to have surgery or chemotherapy as part of their treatment in the first year post-cancer diagnosis. The most common allied health admissions were for physiotherapy (34.0%), occupational therapy (16.9%), social work (16.2%), dietetics (13.3%) and pharmacy (8.8%). Unplanned allied health admissions lasted for a mean of 7.7 days compared to unplanned non-allied health admissions of 6.9 days (t=-2.78, p<0.00).

Conclusions
Almost 16% of unplanned admissions to hospital were primarily for allied health care. People admitted primarily for an allied health service were significantly different to other people who presented for unplanned permissions. This suggests that this group could be identified earlier in the course of the disease to ensure they receive the care they require and reduce the need for emergency interventions.