How to design and implement palliative care public health programmes: foundation measures. An operational paper by the WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Palliative Care Programmes at the Catalan Institute of Oncology.

This paper summarises the recommendations of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Palliative Care Public Health Programmes with respect to design and implementation of palliative care national or regional public health palliative care programmes in their initial phases. We describe the elements of a programme (leadership and aims; needs and context assessment; definition of the target patients; general measures in conventional services; specialist services in different settings; sectorised networks; education and training; availability and accessibility of opioids and essential drugs; legislation; standards; budget; valuation and improvement of quality; and evaluation of results and indicators) and the specific recommendations to implement the first steps of each component. Palliative care planning needs to be systematic, inserted in all levels of the healthcare system and adapted to the cultural and organisational status of the system.

The Catalonia World Health Organization demonstration project for palliative care implementation: quantitative and qualitative results at 20 years.

Catalonia (Spain) has a total population of 7.3 million citizens for whom the National Health Service (NHS) provides health care that is free at the point of access. The prevalence of terminally ill patients is between 30,100 and 39,600.

Jordan palliative care initiative: a WHO Demonstration Project.

A model for pain relief and palliative care for the Middle East has been established in Jordan. King Hussein Cancer Centre (KHCC) in Amman is now a truly comprehensive cancer center as it includes palliative care for inpatients, outpatients, and patients at home. This is especially important in a country and a region where over 75% of the cancer patients are incurable when diagnosed.

Catalonia WHO palliative care demonstration project at 15 Years (2005).

Since 1990, a wide range of palliative care services has been implemented throughout the Catalan Health Care System. In 2005, 21,400 patients received palliative care; 59% had cancer (79.4% of all cancer patients) and 41% had other noncancer diagnoses (25.