BACKGROUND According to EU policy, anyone in need of palliative care should be able to have access to it. It is therefore important to investigate which palliative care topics are subject to legislation and regulations in Europe and how these are implemented in (national) health care plans. This paper aims to deliver a structured overview of the legislation, existing regulations and the differe...

Palliative care of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) is often undertaken by CF teams rather than palliative care teams because of the specialist nature of the disease and the potential role of lung transplantation. We developed an integrated model of provision of palliative care whereby most care is delivered by the CF team using palliative guidelines and pathways, with additional support avai...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW The current review discusses the integration of guideline and evidence-based palliative care into heart failure end-of-life (EOL) care. RECENT FINDINGS North American and European heart failure societies recommend the integration of palliative care into heart failure programs. Advance care planning, shared decision-making, routine measurement of symptoms and quality of life ...

BACKGROUND In 2007, a first survey on undergraduate palliative care teaching in Switzerland has revealed major heterogeneity of palliative care content, allocation of hours and distribution throughout the 6 year curriculum in Swiss medical faculties. This second survey in 2012/13 has been initiated as part of the current Swiss national strategy in palliative care (2010 - 2015) to serve as a lon...

BACKGROUND People with dementia may benefit from palliative care which specifically addresses the needs of patients and families affected by this life-limiting disease. On behalf of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC), we recently performed a Delphi study to define domains for palliative care in dementia and to provide recommendations for optimal care. An international panel of ...

BACKGROUND In addition to the effectiveness of hospital care models for terminal patients, policy makers and health care payers are concerned about their costs. This study aims to measure the hospital costs of treating terminal patients in Belgium from the health care payer perspective. Also, this study compares the costs of palliative and usual care in different types of hospital wards. METH...

Dr Lesley Colvin (Senior Lecturer in Anaesthesia, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh) discussed the challenges of pain management in patients with a history of addiction. Similar to other chronic conditions, substance misuse often follows a relapsing course. Pain is a frequently associated comorbidity. Mortality rates are high but can be reduced by successful methadone maintenance programmes, ...

BACKGROUND Government policy is a fundamental component of initiating change to improve the provision of palliative care at a national level. The World Health Organisation's recognition of palliative care as a basic human right has seen many countries worldwide develop national policy in palliative and end of life care. There is increasing debate about what form comprehensive palliative care se...

OBJECTIVE For patients with advanced cancer, several randomised controlled trials have shown that access to palliative care at least 6 months before death can improve symptoms, reduce unplanned hospital admissions, minimise aggressive cancer treatments and enable patients to make choices about their end-of-life care, including exercising the choice to die at home. This study determines in a UK ...