Rehabilitative Palliative Care (RPC) is a person-centred approach that integrates rehabilitation principles into the delivery of palliative and end-of-life care. It focuses on comfort, coping and adapting to loss of function, maintaining independence, and quality of life for people with life-limiting illnesses, enabling them to live as actively, well and meaningfully as possible. Supporting self-management and dignity are key principles (Morrow & Lynch, 2025). As health systems respond to ageing populations and the growing burden of chronic disease, there is increasing interest in how rehabilitative models can be embedded within palliative care pathways to address not only symptom management, but also empathy, participation, autonomy, and psychosocial well-being within a compassionate ethos of care.
The development of Rehabilitative Palliative Care across the island of Ireland is supporting the Republic of Ireland’s National Adult Palliative Care Policy (2024), which recognises the importance of integrated, person-centred models of care and includes a commitment to develop, evaluate and scale models of rehabilitative palliative care provision. The Northern Ireland Assembly’s Committee for Health Report on Access to Palliative Care Services (2025) highlights in Recommendation 23: that the Department of Health that investment in palliative care services through sustainable interdisciplinary team workforce and prehabilitation services in the Transformation Agenda.
This resource page brings together key materials to support learning, practice development, service innovation and research in Rehabilitative Palliative Care. Resources include the All Ireland Position Paper on Rehabilitative Palliative Care developed by Dr Elizabeth Morrow and Professor Mary Lynch (RCSI), which was commissioned by the All Ireland Institute of Hospice and Palliative Care and funding for the research and subsequent position paper was provided by the Health Service Executive (HSE) in the Republic of Ireland.
Living well with advancing illness – An interdisciplinary rehabilitative care approach to patient care; Palliative Rehabilitation Seminar event held in the Ashling Hotel on 11 June 2026, including video recordings and power point slides of oral presentations from the event along with a collection of posters showcasing emerging evidence, implementation initiatives and examples of practice from across the island of Ireland.
These resources are intended for healthcare professionals, educators, researchers, service leaders, people living with life-limiting illness and those important to them who are interested in advancing approaches that promote autonomy, function, participation and quality of life within palliative care services.
Key Publications and Resources
Collection Rehabilitative Palliative Care Evidence for Policy and Practice, click here
Rehabilitative palliative care – evidence to inform an all Ireland position paper, click on here
Exemplar projects for poster presentation are available here
Videos and resources from the Rehabilitative Palliative Care on the island of Ireland Webinar in February 2026 (Link)
Videos and resources from the Palliative Rehabilitation Seminar | Living well with advancing illness June 2025 (Link)
