The importance of evaluating systematically the effectiveness of hospice care has been noted for at least 20 years. There is, however, limited evidence about whether and how the care provided to terminally ill patients by in-patient hospices in the UK differs from that provided in NHS hospitals. In this article, we, therefore, present a comparison of hospice in-patient care and hospital care for cancer patients in the UK, from the perspective of bereaved relatives who had experienced both types of care during the last 3 months of the patient’s life.
