Enhanced promotion of palliative care

Bern, 18.9.2020 - The Federal Council wants better integration of palliative care in healthcare provision. Because everyone in Switzerland deserves to receive the best possible care and treatment at the end of life. A new report analyses the situation and presents measures.

Palliative Care

Numerous measures to promote palliative care have been successfully implemented in Switzerland in recent years. You can find an overview of these measures on the website of the Palliative Care Platform and on the FOPH website .

However, the medical, nursing and psychosocial support and treatment for people at the end of life is still not integrated well enough in healthcare provision. And not all patient groups have equal access to these services. This issue has been addressed in a report commissioned by the Council of States Health Commission.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also highlighted the important role of palliative care. In future, greater consideration is to be given to the needs of the dying and their relatives while the pandemic is being tackled.

Based on the report, the Federal Council has proposed a series of measures, including the following:

  • To set up a permanent working group to identify ways in which people can be helped to deal with the end of life at an early stage (advance health planning).
  • To launch a project designed to improve access to palliative care for all patients.
  • To promote specialist palliative care services, such as community-based mobile palliative services or hospice structures.

We will be implementing most of the measures defined in the report together with the cantons and our partners in the context of the Palliative Care Platform . The report also contains recommendations for measures to be implemented independently by the cantons or tariff partners (health insurers and doctors).

Further information

Palliative Care

The National Strategy for Palliative Care was implemented by the federal government from 2010 to 2015. Measures were introduced in several areas, such as care delivery, education and awareness-raising.

Last modification 18.09.2020

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