[Palliative care in Czech Republic in 2016]

In the Czech Republic more than 70,000 patients with chronic incurable diseases need palliative care each year. In 50,000 this need is manageable in the context of general palliative care, 20,000 patients would greatly benefited from specialized palliative care. Most chronically ill patients (> 60 %) died in acute or post acute inpatient health care facilities. Here s the availability and quality of palliative care varies substantially. Inpatient hospices provide end of life palliative care to less than 3000 patients each year. Outpatient and mobile specialized palliative care services are available only to a few hundreds of patients.In the year 2016 palliative care at the appropriate professional level ("state of art") is not a generally available and guaranteed within Czech health care and social system. We perceive an urgent need for the systematic development of general and specialized palliative care at the level of education, healthcare organization and the development of new health and social services.