Relational approaches to conceptualising, measuring and enacting wellbeing and care in palliative and end-of-life contexts

Palliative care, according to the definition offered by the World Health Organisation, should improve the quality of life of patients (adults and children) and their families who are facing problems associated with life-threatening illness (WHO, Citation2020). Palliative and end-of-life care aims to prevent and relieve suffering through the early identification, correct assessment and treatment of pain and other challenges. Scholarship and practice in this context has long acknowledged the need to consider care as holistic. Dame Cicely Saunders (Citation1996) – an English physician, nurse and social worker broadly acknowledged as the founder of the modern hospice movement and the discipline of palliative care – famously outlined the concept of ‘total pain’ in the mid-twentieth century. The term suggests that a person’s suffering extends beyond the physical to the psychological, social, and spiritual (Clark, Citation1999). Saunders argued for each individual’s freedom to make their own journey towards their ultimate goals. This conceptual advancement was important for its time, recognising that pain is not contained to the individual, nor is it only physiological. While use of this concept continues, moving beyond these ideas to advance our understanding and theorisation of palliative care is warranted.