World Hospice and Palliative Care Day Theme 2025

Every year the second Saturday of October marks World Hospice and Palliative Care Day (WHPCD). This year WHPCD will be on Saturday 11 October 2025. Each year the WHPCD campaign has a theme that is carefully thought through and selected by the Worldwide Hospice and Palliative Care Alliance (WHPCA) team.

The theme for 2025 is Achieving the Promise: Universal Access to Palliative Care. This theme builds on last year’s campaign where we marked 10 years since the World Health Assembly (WHO’s Governing Body) passed the only stand-alone resolution on palliative care, calling for all countries to “strengthen palliative care as a component of comprehensive care throughout the life course.” The aim is to achieve this promise.

More than 60 million people both adults and children need palliative care services every year with over 80% living in low-middle-income countries (LMIC’s) countries. WHPCA has estimated that over half of the need for palliative care is being met in high-income countries while only 4% of the bigger need is met in LMICs, a continuing and shocking disparity.

The WHPCA appeals to each one of you to help us keep the World Day campaign going by making a generous donation to help fund the development of the resources for WHPCD. WHPCA plans and organizes the day and needs your support. All donations are greatly appreciated. Find more information by visiting the donation page here.

NOTE: The WHPCA website will be updated soon with the new logo and we will share more details as we continue to develop and update the resources.