Understanding palliative and end of life care access within a health ecosystem: An examination of the issues facing providers and service users

Good palliative care improves quality-of-life for patients at the end of life, supports dying with
dignity, and alleviates some family caregiver burden Moreover, place of death is related to
quality-of-life, and the comfortable death of a loved one improves the wellbeing of the bereaved Demand for palliative care will rise: an ageing population coupled with increasing prevalence of
non-communicable diseases means annual deaths in England and Wales will increase by 27% by
20403. At the same time, the trend towards smaller and more fragmented families will lead to
fewer familial caregivers changing the current place of death distribution pattern Yet, only a miniscule proportion of healthcare research focuses on palliative care and more than one third
of health and wellbeing boards do not consider the needs of dying people when assessing the requirements of their local populations. It is perhaps unsurprising then that there is a struggle to meet the demands of adequate, let alone high-quality, palliative care, with 1 in 4 UK families unable to access the end of life care they need