Something's ironic in Denmark: an otherwise progressive welfare state lags well behind in care of patients at the end of life.

Tremendous strides have been made in the last two decades with regard to the quality of palliative care available to patients at the end of life. But progress has not been uniform, even among countries in the same region of the world. The objective of this study is to describe, in a comparative context, the current status of end-of-life palliative care in Denmark using quantitative research published in the past five years.