This textbook on palliative social work is a companion volume to the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine and the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing. To that end, this chapter will accomplish the following:

♦Palliative care in the United Kingdom is integrated with the U.K. National Health Service.

♦Government policy is to transfer expertise drawn from palliative care services for people with advanced illness into end-of-life care for all citizens approaching the end of life.

♦Palliative social work in the United Kingdom is centered on a network of in-patient hospices, most of which also provide community palliative care.

♦Palliative care teams in hospitals may also include social workers.

♦The palliative social work emphasis on interpersonal practice contrasts with the mainly administrative care management role of most social workers in adult social care services in the United Kingdom.