A collaborative nursing model for advanced non-malignant disease.

This article reviews the arguments for and against specialist palliative care for patients with advanced non-malignant disease. It argues the case for a collaborative model of education to develop the skills of specialist nurses so that they can better care for such patients. A clinically based collaborative nursing model of palliative care, which has not been derived from current cancer models, has also been developed. In addition, a brief overview of the current provision of care for cancer patients is given, since it is against this background that care for patients with advanced non-malignant disease will be developed.