Resource allocation issues concerning early palliative care

Health care institutions and major stakeholders pointed out years ago, that palliative care is an inevitable part of the care for patients with life-threatening diseases and applicable early in the course of the disease together with life-prolonging and disease modifying therapies (1). Yet, palliative care has been misperceived as end-of-life care by many cancer specialists. Many have been rather reluctant to deliver basic palliative care interventions as for example the assessment and management of patients’ psychosocial needs. Few have received specialist training for symptom control such as pain management (2). At the same time, routine integration of specialist palliative care services still is the exception and not the rule (3)