King's College London

Following a statement by the charity Cicely Saunders International, a major funder of research to identify and promote best practice in palliative care, the Cicely Saunders Institute (CSI) has joined a call for the government to tackle the crisis in the quality and provision of palliative care across the UK.

The statement emphasizes the growing need for palliative care to improve quality of life for increasing numbers of people living with life-limiting conditions, the benefits of widening provision, and the critical gaps in what is currently provided to people as they approach the end of life. Cicely Saunders International is calling for urgent action to better integrate palliative care across health and care systems, and outlines the essential steps to address these gaps through a seven point Action Plan for palliative care.

The statement draws on evidence from research funded by Cicely Saunders International, other charities, research councils and CSI’s research on the last three months of life identifying the lack of support and the level of suffering. In a ‘Better end of life’ report for Marie Curie, CSI’s research highlighted that in the last week of life 35% of those who died were reported to be severely or overwhelmingly affected by pain and 40% were severely or overwhelmingly affected by breathlessness.

Cicely Saunders International is a long-term supporter of CSI, and continues to fund important research programmes including the BuildPall programme, which aims to build capacity in palliative care research through postgraduate research Fellowships.