In the words of the Director General of WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
“We cannot achieve Universal Health Coverage without palliative care.”
The UHC advocacy guide provides a framework to support advocacy to facilitate policymakers at national, regional, or local levels making a robust and meaningful commitment to palliative care (PC) as part of their commitment to Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and sets out evidence that can be used for this advocacy process. It is designed to be adaptable to your own context and to provide guidance on supporting documents that you may want to access to further your cause. We have produced it in anticipation of the upcoming High-Level Meeting on UHC in September 2023 at the United Nations.
The guide highlights some key documents to use in relation to palliative care to facilitate writing your case. This guide discusses UHC in the specific context of palliative care as well as primary health care, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and importantly how you can use specific elements of the Political declaration on UHC to add leverage to your advocacy. Palliative care need not be expensive and indeed there is emerging evidence that PC may be cost effective in some circumstances as it potentially permits carers and/or patients to return to work and thus avoids the household being forced into poverty by out-of-pocket health-related spending.
The advice on the documents/evidence you should prepare to advocate for the inclusion of palliative care in UHC can be modified to meet your specific needs. All countries have signed up to UHC 2030 and to the Political Declaration so there is a clear responsibility to implement these and to integrate palliative care as it is an essential component of UHC. It is critical that the voice of individuals with lived experience of palliative care needs are included in the advocacy process and indeed the WHO places people with palliative needs at the centre of its current (‘House’) model of palliative care. We are hoping that you will find this document useful and welcome feedback on how you have used it and any changes that would improve its utility. You can use the guide in any way that you find useful to you including copying directly from it. Please contact me at hdavies@thewhpca.org if you have any comments or queries. We hope you find the guide useful.
WHPCA will be hosting a one hour webinar on using this guide on the 17th of May. You can register for this event at:
You are invited to a Zoom webinar.
When: May 17, 2023 09:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Topic: WHPCA UHC Advocacy Webinar
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XgGWTVpZSGSgLcZUa1RQbg
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
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