Research Highlights Innovation Pathways in Children’s Palliative Care, Published in BMC Palliative Care

Global Treehouse is dedicated to sparking, scaling and sharing innovation to transform care for seriously ill children and their families globally. Our work is grounded in a vision for world-class pediatric palliative care, informed by practical examples and innovative approaches.

"What are the greatest opportunities for innovation to improve access to and quality of palliative care services to children? A qualitative interview study,” has now been published as an open-access study in the journal BMC Palliative Care in July 2025.

“Innovation is required within children’s palliative care (CPC) to improve access to and quality of care”

The research included fifty-one children’s palliative care leaders with diverse expertise from 27 countries. The result is the development of a comprehensive framework with nine themes:

• Vision

• Services

• People

• Technology

• Organisation

• Culture

• Place

• Partnership

• Leadership

These insights are designed to empower leaders and policymakers to “use the insights from this work to innovate and improve quality and access to children’s palliative care worldwide.”

This research is authored by Kate Grailey, Jonty Roland, Madeleine Lambert, Gianluca Fontana, Laura Dale-Harris, Ivor Williams, Alexandra Shaw, Ana L. Neves and Julia Downing.

Global Treehouse continues its mission to turn insights into action: supporting leaders, shifting narratives and advancing innovation to ensure that all children, everywhere, can access the palliative care they deserve. This newly published research strongly reinforces our collaborative approach and our unwavering commitment to championing healthcare.

If you are interested in using the nine feature themes to further your work, drop us a note at info@globaltreehouse.foundation.