Palliative care in acute hospitals - a new vision.

This article explores new and innovative ways of delivering palliative and end-of-life care (EoLC) within the acute hospital setting. Severe financial pressures in the NHS and social care, combined with the increasing clinical complexity of patients, have raised concerns about the quality of EoLC in hospitals. The creation of hospital palliative care units (PCUs) and other improvement initiatives will be described across two large acute hospital trusts which resulted in a rating of 'Outstanding' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for their delivery of end-of-life services.