We are a brand new coalition, launched in May 2025, we are actively engaging members and finalising steering group roles.
Why we exist
The National End of life Care Coalition works to ensure policies and services related to the end-of-life are representative of whole life experience of death, dying, loss and caregiving.
Living with grief and loss, with a serious illness and with long-term caring responsibilities affects most people. 1% of the population die each year and on average, 9 people are directly affected by this. That’s over 6 million people. The support they receive is the business of the 90% and this support happens in all civic environments from neighbourhoods and schools to health and social care providers, workplaces and faith groups.
The focus of discussions about improving services for dying people falls mainly on specialist palliative care. This specialist clinical field is important but is only one small part of helping the whole of society to live and die well.
Death, dying, loss and caregiving are social experiences and a natural part of life. The National End of Life Care Coalition therefore takes a whole population approach to providing support irrespective of age, demographic, cause of death, or diagnosis. This inclusive approach is founded on the principles of equity, with equal partnerships between communities and all health and social care organisations.
We represent the wide-ranging organisations involved in end-of-life care and promote the idea that care at the end of life is not just delivered by a specialist clinical service to the dying person but involves networks throughout a person’s community and the institutions surrounding them.
Purpose:
- To amplify the voices of communities and community-led organisations who are not represented by groups and committees that have a clinical focus on palliative care
- To advocate for a whole population approach to providing support irrespective of age, cause of death, or diagnosis – known as public health palliative care
- To drive changes to policy
We do this by:
- Contributing to policy opportunities
- Providing comment on developments in end-of-life care
- Acting as a credible and accessible source of information for policy makers, the media and the public
- Developing, promoting, and disseminating evidence
- Facilitating the exchange of ideas and encouraging discussion of whole population approaches to death, dying, loss and caregiving
- Offering collaborative and inclusive multi-agency learning centred on the voice of lived experience