Economic

Background: Informal caregivers represent the foundation of the palliative care workforce and are the main providers of end of life care. Financial pressures are among the most serious concerns for many carers and the financial burden of end of life caregiving can be substantial. Methods: The aim of this critical debate paper was to review and critique some of the key evidence on the financial costs of informal caregiving and describe how these costs represent an equity issue in palliative care.

With more and more individuals surviving cancer it is important to estimate the economic burden survivorship places on these individuals, and also on their friends, family, carers and the wider society. This paper provides a review of current estimates of the cost of living with and surviving cancer. Few studies have provided an all-encompassing estimate of the burden. A range of methodologies to estimate the direct health care costs, direct non-health care costs, productivity loss and informal care costs of surviving cancer are described.