Palliative care
Palliative care focuses on controlling pain and other symptoms connected with cancer, and meeting your social, emotional and spiritual needs.
You may come across a palliative care team at any stage of your cancer experience. Palliative care concentrates on your quality of life and that of people who are close to you.
Palliative care should be offered to everyone who has cancer, but it is especially important for people whose cancer cannot be cured. Some people need specialist palliative care support, which may be provided by teams of health professionals working from hospitals or in the community.
Hospice care
Hospice care allows people whose illness is no longer curable to achieve the best quality of life. Many hospices offer their services to people who are not terminally ill, but would benefit from palliative care. Staff are trained to advise on pain and symptom control. They also give emotional support to patients, their loved ones and friends during the person with cancer’s last illness and after bereavement.
Hospice care can be provided at home, in a specialist hospice or palliative care unit, in hospital or at a hospice day centre.