ABSTRACT
Day care has been developed to meet the needs of patients living at home with advanced terminal illness whose lives have been severely limited by their disease. It is a rapidly expanding area of specialist palliative care: in 1980 in the UK there were 11 day care centres and in 2002 this had increased to 243.1 A study involving the North and South Thames Health Regions was carried out in 1999/2000 and if the findings from this are projected nationally, it is estimated that there are now more than 12 250 day care places per week.2
