Introduction

Palliative care maximises the quality of life for people with life-limiting disease and supports end of life care. It prevents or reduces suffering by providing effective pain management and relief from distressing symptoms. It also addresses needs of carers, family and friends during the patients’ illness and in case of bereavement.1

People receiving palliative care require fewer and shorter hospitalisations and less visits to emergency departments. Receiving palliative care at home reduces the need for hospital-based care, which can be associated with cost savings for the health system.1

The World Health Assembly stressed the need for countries to ensure access to palliative care for all patients in need by integrating palliative care into their healthcare systems.1 However, significant barriers to accessing palliative care remain, even in countries with high-resource systems in which palliative care services are at an advanced level of integration.1 2

In high-resource countries barriers to use of palliative care are usually not financial or structural, but may lie more in cultural, social and informational domains. Some examples of such barriers may include a lack of awareness of the need and purpose of palliative care, lack of knowledge of palliative care among healthcare …