The Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance states this was largely due to barriers which affect the access and availability of strong pain relief drugs such as morphine for people with life-limiting illness, particularly in many developing countries.
The data also ranks countries in terms of access to palliative care based on need with the UK featuring as one of the top countries, alongside others such as the US, Norway and Germany.
Commenting on the new figures, Jonathan Ellis, Director of Policy and Advocacy at national hospice charity Help the Hospices, said:
“It is deeply worrying that in the twenty-first century so many terminally ill people across the world still do not have access to the pain relief they desperately need. Access to pain relief should be a basic right wherever people may live in the world
“These figures highlight the importance of the recent World Health Assembly resolution which requires governments to integrate palliative care more into their national healthcare systems.
“While the UK appears to rank highly in these figures for access to pain relief, we know that there is a considerable need for palliative care in this country that currently goes unmet. This could increase further given higher demand for hospice care in future due to the UK’s increasingly ageing population with more people living for longer with complex care needs.”
Other figures also released today by the National Council for Palliative Care and Public Health England support this view that there is still unmet need in the UK, especially for non-cancer patients who only account for 12% of all new patients in specialist palliative care inpatient units.
The BBC has published an in-depth feature on poor access to pain medication around the world, which can be accessed on the website.
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