Ranking of palliative care development in the countries of the European Union

Context\ud \ud There is growing interest in monitoring palliative care (PC) development internationally. One aspect of this is the ranking of such development for comparative purposes.\ud \ud Objectives\ud \ud To generate a ranking classification and to compare scores for PC development in the countries of the European Union (EU), 2007 and 2013. PC “development” in this study is understood as a combination of the existence of relevant services in a country (“resources”) plus the capacity to develop further resources in the future (“vitality”).\ud \ud Methods\ud \ud “Resources” comprise indicators of three types of PC services per population (inpatient palliative care units and inpatient hos…