Directors of the WeCare Chair: End-of-Life Care at UIC Barcelona, Cristina Monforte and Joaquim Julià, have regretted that about 80,000 people die every year in Spain without receiving the palliative care they would need. According to experts, inequalities in palliative care exist across the autonomous communities due to the different health model of each community. However, in recent years the number of paediatric palliative care units and teams has increased due to a growing awareness of the need to implement them. Researchers also pointed out that palliative care teams should be minimally comprised of medical, nursing, psychology and social work professionals.

According to a study prepared by the Chair researchers, all relevant aspects of the person in question must be addressed in a clinical interview that takes into account more than 40 important aspects. In this first contact “every person who the patient wants should be present, always placing the patient in the centre and prioritising their decisions and preferences,” explains Chair co-director, Joaquim Julià.

Julià also emphasised that it is essential to develop a specialty or a specific training area (ACE) that guarantees that the professional is competent to provide quality palliative care and has sufficient preparation to deal with high complexity cases. “This model should be applied in medicine, nursing and psychology,” he said.

Regarding a possible National Law on Palliative Care, Julià pointed out its importance because it would provide a regulatory framework to establish access to palliative care as a citizen’s right, although he also stressed that resources would be needed to implement it.