Research highlights that the general public, especially those being referred to palliative care, often have limited understanding and experience of palliative care. Many people believe that palliative care is solely care provided immediately before death, rather than care delivered to optimise quality of life to people who are seriously ill along their illness journey. Given the misapprehensions – and sometimes misunderstandings – patients and families have when they are referred to palliative care, there is ongoing need to help patients and families understand the range of reasons for referral and the benefits they can expect from this care. The ‘More Than They Think’ resources have been designed to support clinicians who are referring patients to palliative care.

The following resources may be useful to implement in your service:

• Brochure: For providing initial information to clinical teams about key benefits of palliative care that can be explained to patients and families
• Factsheet: A template that can be used to develop information about palliative care services in your local area. This has been branded with a public-facing logo, to allow use of this fact sheet by clinicians, patients and their families.
• Powerpoint template: For use in presentations and education sessions with clinical staff to support referring patients to palliative care.
• Poster: For raising awareness among clinical teams about the availability of resources and information they can use to support referring patients to palliative care.

Please feel free to make use of these materials and share these campaign resources.