The following is a list of policies, documents and resources useful for palliative care advocacy. List is under construction and will be added to
World Health Organization: Palliative Care homepage is a hub for publication, resources and links to external sites.
Lancet Commission on Palliative Care and Pain Relief recognises that lack of access to palliative care and pain relief is a global crisis. It produced the essential package of palliative care and pain relief health services.
RESOLUTIONS
World Health Assembly: Resolution 67.19 Strengthening of palliative care as a component of comprehensive care throughout the life course. This resolution was passed in 2014, recognizing the importance of palliative care, including access to essential medicines, and urging national governments to develop palliative care. Research indicates that it is achieving success in terms of championing palliative care and influencing policy (Carrasco et al, 2021).
See also Implementing World Health Assembly Resolution on Palliative Care (October 2021)
UN General Assembly Human Rights Council Resolution 48/3 Human rights of older persons recognises that older persons face challenges in accessing palliative care. It calls upon member states to prohibit all forms of discrimination against older persons and to take measures to protect their human rights, including access to palliative care.
QUALITY HEALTH SERVICES AND PALLIATIVE CARE
World Health Organisation: Quality health services and palliative care: practical approaches and resources to support policy, strategy and practice. As countries commit to achieving universal health coverage, it is imperative to ensure that the design and delivery of palliative care services place attention on quality of care, with action needed across all domains of quality health services: effectiveness, safety, people-centredness, timeliness, equity, integration and efficiency. Providing compassionate, dignified and people-centred palliative care is an ethical responsibility of health systems.
PAEDIATRIC PALLIATIVE CARE
Open Society: Children’s palliative care and human rights. Sets out palliative care as a human right of the child.
World Health Organization: Integrating palliative care and symptom relief into paediatrics. This document sets out the moral and medical case for paediatric palliative care (PPC) and proposes an Essential Package of Palliative Care for Paediatrics and Symptom Relief (EP Ped). It offers practical guidance on integrating PPC and pain relief into health care systems .
PALLIATIVE CARE FOR OLDER PEOPLE
United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 48/3 Human rights of older persons recognises access to palliative care is a human right of older persons.
United Nations: Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021-2030) is a global collaboration with the aim of “improving the lives of older people, their families, and the communities in which they live”. There are 4 inter-relating areas of action: age-friendly environments, combatting ageism (relates to HRC resolution 48/3), integrated care (including end-of-life care) and long-term care (includes palliation).
PALLIATIVE CARE IN EMERGENCIES AND HUMANITARIAN CRISES
World Health Organization:Integrating palliative care and symptom relief into the response to humanitarian emergencies and crises. This document offers an expanded conception of palliative care based on the needs of people affected by humanitarian emergencies and crises and proposes an Essential Package of Palliative Care for Humanitarian Emergencies and Crises (EP Hum).
DATA REPOSITORIES and INDICATORS
International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care: Serious Health Related Suffering (SHS) Database. Data visualization tool produced by the Lancet Commission on Global Access to Palliative Care and Pain Relief.
Assessing the development of palliative care worldwide: a set of actionable indicators: Assessing the development of palliative care worldwide: a set of actionable indicators provides a refined set of actionable indicators that can be used by countries to monitor and assess the development of palliative care.