Easing the transition to palliative care.

Palliative care is an important and challenging part of a practice nurse’s role. The appropriate and timely transition of a patient to palliative care can be stressful and difficult for the patient and all those involved in their care. Referral to palliative care services is a complex process. Its importance should not be underestimated, if the fear and misunderstandings around accepting palliative care are to be minimised. This reflective case study of a 72-year-old woman’s transition from general practice to palliative care highlights a number of the issues that can arise in this transition. The World Health Organisation in 2002 defined palliative care as “an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual”.1