Palliative care development in India: new WHO conceptual model

Abstract

Background Palliative care is gaining global attention and is endorsed in high level policy commitments, but progress towards universal palliative care coverage is constrained in many countries. The WHO released a new conceptual model for the assessment of palliative care development in 2021, comprising 18 indicators to assess a country’s palliative care situation. Of these 10 core indicators to be used to monitor the progress of palliative care in countries at more mature stage of development. The coreindicators would then facilitate both in country and global comparativeanalysis and will also inform decision makers about the gaps and challenges in palliative care provision. Aim This article tries to analyse the position of the development of palliative care in India on the 10 coreindicators and uses information from various relevant secondary resources. Results National programme forpalliative care (2017) has been included in the National Health Mission and policies on palliative care have been framed by four states: Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamilnadu. While significant improvement in the availability of palliative care services across India have been observed, regional and state- wise disparities remain high. Conclusion Our analysis indicates that the prosed set of indicators by WHO can be a valuable means to monitor the progress of palliative care development in the country on a year- on -year basis.