Palliative Care Matters for All: palliative care strategy 2025 to 2030

Terms used in this Strategy

Allied Health Professionals (AHP)

A large group of healthcare staff including physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dietitians, speech and language therapists, radiographers, paramedics, podiatrists, art therapists, drama or music therapists.

Care around dying

Care around dying means holistic care of a person of any age who is dying and in the last hours, days or few weeks of their life, that focuses on comfort and includes people close to them who are supported into bereavement.

We now use the term ‘care around dying’ instead of ‘end of life care’ because the older wording causes confusion with palliative care which can be important long before someone is dying.

Compassionate communities

Compassionate community is a broad term that can include a person’s own networks of family, friends, neighbours, work colleagues, social or faith/belief groups and others they meet. Some compassionate communities are more organised groups that actively encourage, support and facilitate care for one another, seeing that as everyone’s responsibility.

Family and carers

By family we mean anyone who is close or important to a person such as their family members, relatives, partners or close friends.

A carer is a person of any age who provides unpaid care and support to a family member, friend or neighbour.

Frailty

When a person is living with frailty, their body gradually loses its in-built reserves. This leaves them vulnerable to changes in their health or circumstances and makes it harder to recover from an injury, infection or illness.

Future care planning

Future care planning is ongoing, shared decision-making that supports people of all ages and their families and carers to manage changes in their life, health and care. Personalised future care plans include what matters to the person and options to guide staff in a health or social care emergency.

General palliative care

Palliative care for people of all ages that is provided by many different health and social care staff as part of their usual care of people living with life shortening conditions, wherever they live or have care. General palliative care is sometimes called ‘a palliative care approach’.

Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP)

HSCPs are partnerships that integrate delegated services provided by Health Boards and Local Authorities/Councils in Scotland. Each partnership is run jointly by the NHS and local authority. HSCPs are usually directed by their area Integration Joint Boards (see definition below).

Holistic care

Holistic care is person-centred and helps people with managing symptoms, emotional, psychological, social or financial problems, and spiritual wellbeing, regardless of faith or belief.

Independent hospice

An independent hospice is a registered charity regulated by Healthcare Improvement Scotland that operates through a combination of charitable and NHS funding to provide specialist palliative care services (see definition below)

Integration Authority

Integration Authorities are partnerships between local authorities and Health Boards for delivering health and social care services with integration of budgets. There are different models for establishing Integration Authorities, including lead agencies (one authority is leading) or body corporates (such as Integration Joint Boards (IJBs)).

Integration Joint Board (IJB)

IJBs are a type of Integration Authority (see definition above) and are responsible for planning and commissioning health and social care services for the people living in their areas.

Life shortening conditions

Any illnesses or health conditions that mean a person’s health will deteriorate over a variable time and, at some point in the future, they will die with these conditions.

Life threatening illness

An illness or condition that means the person is very ill and may die soon, even with the best available treatment and care.

Long term conditions

Long term conditions (sometimes referred to as chronic diseases) last a year or longer, limit what a person can do, and require ongoing medical care. Some long term conditions become life shortening conditions that cause or contribute to a person’s death. These include heart, lung, kidney or liver conditions, neurological conditions, blood vessel (vascular) diseases including stroke, and some types of cancer.

Multidisciplinary team

Groups of health and/or social care staff from different professions or backgrounds who work together to provide care and support for people of all ages, their families and carers.

Palliative care

Palliative care is holistic care of a person of any age living with life shortening conditions and their family and carers that focuses on what matters to them. It can start from around the time of diagnosis and includes care when someone is dying.

People of all ages

This is babies, children, young people, adults and older people.

Realistic medicine

Realistic Medicine means decisions about a person’s care are made jointly between the individual and their care team. It is kind and careful care that delivers better outcomes and experiences for people, supports healthier lives, reduces unnecessary treatments, adverse events and hospitalisations, and uses available resources sustainably.

Specialist palliative care unit

A specialist palliative care unit provides inpatient care from palliative care specialists. This can be in a separate building or be specialist beds within a hospital ward. Sometimes called a ‘hospice’, it can be run by the NHS or an independent hospice service (see definition above).

Specialist palliative care service

Any team or service (NHS or independent hospice service) providing specialist services delivered by a multidisciplinary team of staff who are specialists in palliative care, and sometimes trained volunteers. Specialist palliative care services are for people of all ages wherever they live or have care. Specialist care is important when the person’s care is more complicated and harder to manage. Specialists offer advice and education to staff providing general palliative care.