Are there inpatient pediatric palliative care services within the oncology centers as well?
The oncology centers will always readmit a child for palliative care if that is needed, or the children could be admitted to their local pediatric ward, but neither of these are specifically designated or planned areas for palliative care. How many children die in Britain each year who might benefit from palliative care services? A good source of this information is a recent report from a joint working party of the Royal College of Pediatrics, which is the British equivalent of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Association for the Care of Children with Life-Threatening Diseases and their Families (known as ACT), which is a charity.1 The working party was interested in developing and integrating services for children who needed palliative care. Until very recently, nobody had thought about these children as one group because they represent quite a wide spectrum of diagnoses, many of which are rare illnesses, and they are geographically scattered all about the country. But we c
