World Hospice and Palliative Care Day (WHPCD) is an annual unified day of action to celebrate and support hospice and palliative care around the world. WHPCD 2023 will be on the 14^th of October.

The Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance (WHPCA) is delighted to announce the theme for 2023, Compassionate Communities: Together for Palliative Care. Compassionate communities respond to needs in the community. A compassionate community improves people’s quality of life, those living with serious illnesses together with their families throughout caregiving and bereavement. This is done by encouraging people to advocate and provide assistance and practical support within their communities.

We will keep you posted on the development of the resources and toolkit.

Please find out more about the theme in a published article HERE.

The World Health Organization (WHO) Board meeting is held in January when the members agree upon the agenda for the World Health Assembly and the resolutions to be considered by the Health Assembly. The 152^nd session of the executive was held in Geneva from 30 January – 7 February 2023. Find more information about the WHPCA participation HERE.

The UK Working Group on NCDs (UKWG) is pleased to present findings from a piece of work drawn up by members (the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases, NCD Child and the Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance) focusing on a ‘life course approach’ to reducing the burden of non-communicable disease (NCD) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The full report is available for download HERE.

The IAHPC and WHPCA have participated in INB consultations since 2022 consistently urging governments involved in INB negotiations to include palliative care language in any pandemic and preparedness response treaty. Although the words “palliative care” did appear in an early draft, they are no longer included in the Zero Draft that member states began negotiating on February 2023.
See how you cab help and get involved HERE.

The Oceanic Palliative Care Conference is back! Please consider submitting an abstract yourself and encouraging those in your workplace or network to do the same. Early bird registrations will open soon. To stay updated and find more information, bookmark this website 👉 https://www.oceanicpallcare.com/

Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey. We value your responses and the WHPCA will take each of your responses into consideration as we analyse the survey.

WHPCA is conducting a membership survey to find out how we can better serve you. We have drafted a survey with some questions to help us understand how we have been of service and to also find out where we need to improve.

Our members are national and regional hospice and palliative care organisations and affiliate organisations supporting hospice and palliative care from around the world. The strength and success of the Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance is dependent on the participation and involvement of our members around the world. We have a diverse and active membership of more than 400 organisations based in over 100  countries. Find out how you can be a member HERE.

Your feedback is invaluable. This survey will take between 5 to 10 minutes. There are 9 sections with only 15 questions. The survey is anonymous and we will not gather your personal information. Please answer all the questions if you can. 

You can access the survey HERE.
 

We are always keen to keep you updated about our work and one of the ways we do that is through our Annual Report. The WHPCA Annual Report 2022 - 2022 was uploaded in November 2022. Please find a PDF copy and download it HERE.

A few months ago, the Help us close the access abyss to palliative care campaign was started to help WHPCA members close this 'access abyss'. At least forty million people and their families living in low or middle-income countries are not able to access palliative care each year, causing unnecessary suffering for the most seriously ill. We are building a movement to ensure that palliative care is included in Universal Health Coverage in all countries. Join the movement HERE.

Last year, we witnessed the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. WHPCA with partners ICPCN, PallCHASE, and the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation came together to raise funds to support palliative care patients in Ukraine and affected countries nearby.

Your generous donation big or small, will help seriously ill people in Ukraine and rebuild access to palliative care once the war and hostilities come to an end.

You can see how the campaign is going.

 

The Global Atlas of Palliative Care is a source of essential information on the status of palliative care worldwide. This second edition of the Global Atlas reveals some of the changes that have occurred since the first edition was published in 2014. For instance, we now have a better idea of how many people need palliative care worldwide.

You can download the new Global Atlas of Palliative Care here.