Over the last decade, Europe has grown to become a unified community that strengthens economic cooperation, political harmony and cultural exchange.

As a consequence of, and in response to this societal phenomenon, the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) has included under its organizational umbrella an increasing number of national and regional palliative care associations, and it has represented many more individual members from different countries over the years.

The gaining of knowledge and understanding of the development of programmes to promote end of life and palliative care, and more effective pain relief across Europe has become increasingly valuable to governments and policy makers committed to improving national or regional health care systems.

An opportunity to share information and experience with other colleagues is encouraging to European health professionals interested in appropriately approaching end of life care matters in an ever more culturally diverse working environment.

Reliable information on the development and provision of palliative care across Europe, however, remains scattered. For this reason, in June 2003, the EAPC Board agreed to the creation of an official Task Force to research palliative care developments in the European region including all the countries that make up the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region, a total of 52 countries at that time.

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1. To provide reliable information on the delivery of hospice and palliative care in Europe in a manner relevant to the EAPC; to intergovernmental organisations and to national and regional governments
2. To explore the current organisation of hospice and palliative care in Europe considering political and social issues; healthcare policies, and the availability of palliative care resources countrywide
3. To facilitate access to information and communication between hospice and palliative care associations and societies that operate across Europe
4. To aid the identification of key persons who have studied the development of hospice and palliative care in their own settings and who may provide country specific data to assist policy makers, planners and professional associations.

• a country by country report of the 52 participating countries. Each country report comprises a summary of the literature in palliative care available in the country, bibliographic information, comments from the “boards” of national associations (or equivalent palliative care organizations), or from the “expert informants” from those countries in which national palliative care associations (or equivalent organizations) do not exist, and a summary of the data collected by the country’s ‘key collaborator’
  
  
•  a comprehensive analysis of the development of palliative care in the European region
  
  
• an atlas of palliative care developments in the European region

Click here to view and download all documents

All participating “key collaborators”, “boards” and “expert informants” have remained as possible “contacts for information” about palliative care in their countries for future researches on the nationwide span of the discipline.

Under the formal auspices of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC), four organizations contribute to this project: