Our vision is that every child receives the support they need in order to live life to the fullest, no matter their health conditions. Expanding access to palliative care is integral to achieving this vision.
THE CHALLENGE
We know more than ever before about caring for children with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions. Despite little or no state support in most countries, children’s palliative care providers have steadily grown and matured over recent decades, professionalising clinical skills and standards, broadening access to care through asset-based approaches, adopting new technologies, and developing new models of care.
Yet there remains a chasm between availability and need – 8 million children need specialist palliative care globally but only 10% receive it. In most countries, children do not receive the support that even adults receive when living with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions, including at the end of life. The lack of state funding makes developing a sustainable operating model challenging. This means there is limited capacity to learn and share best practices and innovation.
This challenge will likely increase as more children survive longer with increasingly complex conditions. Urgent consideration needs to be given to these services' access, care, and sustainability methods. What can we do for those populations who have been left behind in the recent progress toward universal healthcare coverage?
OUR APPROACH
Global Treehouse Foundation is dedicated to changing this reality, accelerating the approach to serving the 90% of children and their families who aren’t receiving the holistic paediatric palliative care they need.
Global Treehouse Foundation focuses on:
Catalysing change: Together with international partners, we’re accelerating the development of new services, including Centres of Excellence.
Scaling investments: Facilitating funding to meet the needs of 8 million children worldwide who require specialist paediatric palliative care.
Building community: Gathering networks to support and sustain innovation and entrepreneurship in and at the edges of paediatric palliative care to advance the field.
Insights and news
What we have been thinking and doing
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Roland, J., Lambert, M., Shaw, A., Williams, I, Dale-Harris L., Fontana G, 2022, The children’s palliative care provider of the future: A blueprint to spark, scale and share innovation, Imperial College London.
‘It is important to recognise that the provision of palliative care to children with life-limiting and life-threatening illnesses differs from that of adults, and the development and provision of paediatric palliative care often lags behind that for adults’. WHPCA. Global Atlas of Palliative Care, 2nd Ed 2020
