Despite significant advances in understanding the benefits of early integration of palliative care with disease management, many people living with a chronic life-threatening illness either do not receive any palliative care service or receive services only in the last phase of their illness. In this article, I explore some of the reasons for failure to provide palliative care services and recommend some strategies to overcome these barriers, emphasizing the importance of describing palliative care accurately. I provide language which I hope will help health care professionals of all disciplines explain what palliative care has to offer and ensure wider access to palliative care, early in the course of their illness.
Keywords: barriers to care; health service delivery; models of care; palliative care.