An Overview of Hospice in the UK

Godwin Chukwuemeka Amarikwa-Obi

Abstract

T he use of hospices in the UK by those on the palliative pathway should be encouraged, and the services should be made widely available. T his paper tried to give a quick overview of hospice service in the United Kingdom. The attendance at these hospices by ethnic minorities in the UK is highly disproportionate when compared with the white British population. The running of these hospices tends to be complex and can be very expensive to sustain. In the UK, the government contributes to the financing of these hospices, but non-profit organisations carry out the great chunk of the financing and management of these establishments. More so, the way these hospices operate is slightly different from the traditional hospitals we all know about. Hospices are mainly for the management of symptoms exhibited by the service users who are approaching their final years, months, weeks, or days of their lives, unlike hospitals, which are curative in orientation.