The taskforce was established beginning of the year 2009.

End of life Care Strategy in UK recommend that care is delivered through close multi-disciplinary and interagency working, partnerships and available networks. We have evidence that the role of specialist social workers has been under threat and yet the evidence from Service users is that they value their interventions. There is also a tendency to see the needs of patients and families in terms of pschological not psychosocial. This belies the knowledge that death and dying are social events.Social Workers basic training about working with families makes them uniquely positioned to see the patient within his family and social networks.

• To offer leadership to social workers in End of Life and Palliative Care across Europe
• To indentify the diversity of tasks and roles
• To examine the skills needed
• To complete a white paper prior to taking a more in depth look at specialist education
• To consider the provision of specialist education
• To produce a curriculum for postgraduate education.

• March 2009 Meeting of social workers in Amsterdam with Pam Firth
• 2009 EAPC conference" Meet the Expert Social Work Meeting" Vienna
• Decision to apply for a task force in EAPC
• 2009 Social Work in End of Life and palliative care:Rieth and Payne published by Policy Press in UK
• May 2010 Quality Assurance Criteria for Medical Social Workers in Palliative Care published by Swedish Palliative Care Social workers
• July 2010 UK End of Life Care Social Care Strategy published recommending that palliative care social workers become consultants and educators for general social workers. All basic social work training to include knowlege about EoLC
• August 2010 Progress in Palliative Care Journal special edition on palliative care social work published. Editors Ruth Powaski, David Oliviere,Pam Firth
• 2011 Meet the Expert Session at Lisbon EAPC conference
• June 2111 Meeting in Romania with Palliative Care Social Workers
• October 2011 Meeting of Palliative Care Social Workers from Central and Eastern Europe in Bucharest
• November 2011 Conference on Palliative Care Social Work organised by member of the steering group in Holland
• January 2012 Susan Cadell from Canada, external palliative social work consultant to the task force visits Social Workers in Ireland and UK
  

The Association of Palliative Care Social Workers UK

St Christophers Hospice UK

The task force leaders are in touch with palliative care social work groups in USA, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Holland, Portugal. Ireland and Romania.