Table 1.

Key terms

• Hospital-based palliative care consultation teams do not assume the care of the patient. They offer advisory and advocacy services to patients, families, and staff to complement the services provided by the ward team, through delivering symptom control, psychosocial care, and end-of-life care for hospitalised adults [66, 67].

• ‘Generalist’ is defined as ‘the acquisition and application of a broad spectrum of knowledge and skills (p. 141) [18]’ that can be used to address the range of different situations regularly encountered caring for patients in the hospital. Here, generalist is used to refer to health and social care providers who are not part of the specialist palliative care team, such as oncologists, neurologists, and the ward social worker

• ‘Specialist’ in this context refers to the specialist palliative care team members, including the specialist palliative care social worker, who have ‘superior knowledge and skill acquired through extensive practice experience and/or additional training (p. 142) [18]’ in palliative care