World Hospice and Palliative Care Day 2026: Pain management – an essential part of palliative care

Wednesday 7 October 2026

World Hospice and Palliative Care Day (WHPCD) was established in 2005 and has since become one of palliative care’s most significant global days. Each year a different theme is chosen to emphasise an important aspect of palliative care. We’re pleased to be joined today by Stephen R Connor, Executive Director Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance (WHPCA), to tell us more about WHPCD 2026 and its call to action.

The main reason for highlighting pain management as an essential component of palliative care as the theme for this year’s WHPCD is that we need a global shift in strategy for ensuring that pain is effectively addressed in the care of our patients. For many years we’ve been calling for increased access to opioids and other essential but controlled substances, but the problem is wider than this. We do need to improve access to opioids for palliative care needs, especially since the global consumption of morphine dropped for the first time in decades from about 5 mg to 4.5 mg per capita from 2017 to 2021. This suggests that people who need this medication for pain relief may not have access to it. The North American opioid crisis being the likely reason but at least 75% of world population still has no or overly restrictive access to these medicines. The twin problems of over and under opioid use continues. We need opioid access without excess.

A recent article I led in EAPC’s partner journal Palliative Medicine points to some of the actions needed to help us improve safe access to essential medicines. Across the world:

• governments need to approve registration of opioids (a regulatory process which states which drugs are effective and safe for specific uses), especially for oral morphine, submit realistic estimates of the yearly national opioid needs to the International Narcotics Control Board, and authorise import and export licensing
• supplier, purchasing and financing arrangements need to be in place so medicines can be obtained at sustainable prices and in appropriate quantities
• medicines need to be safely transported, stored, dispensed and monitored through approved systems for controlled substances, according to the 2025 World Health Organization guidelines
• prescribers need to be trained and willing to treat pain appropriately across the lifespan, while the public understands its right to safe, effective pain relief
• health workers need to be equipped to understand that pain can derive from several mechanisms and causes, promoting responsible opioid advocacy and prescribing, including close monitoring of effects and timely clinical intervention for pain that is less responsive to opioid management
• patients and their caregivers are trained in safe handling of opioids at home and in communities.

It is also time for palliative care advocates to return to the basic principles of treatment of ‘total pain’ as Cicely Saunders originally taught us. We know that physical pain can be exacerbated by psychological, social or existential pain. We also know that spiritual pain can’t be effectively treated with morphine. The treatment of pain should extend beyond opioids to promote rational, evidence-based pain treatment worldwide, including non-opioid medications, non-pharmacological, psychological, social and spiritual care and rehabilitation.

Every person with serious health-related suffering should have access to evidence-based, holistic pain relief including opioid medications where needed.

Join us on WHPCD 2026 on 10^th October 2026 for this call to action and to celebrate palliative care across the globe. Click here to view a special World Day message from Dr Tedros, Director-General World Health Organization (WHO).

On World Hospice and Palliative Care Day 10 October 2026 WHPCA will release the new 3rd Edition of the Global Atlas of Palliative Care, the most up to date picture of the state of palliative care worldwide, in collaboration with WHO and all the major palliative care organisations. Please check our website then to download your copy.

Links and resources

• Find out more about World Hospice and Palliative Care Day and Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance. Follow on X and Facebook and post on social media using the WHPCD hashtag #WHPCDay26
• Get the WHPCD Toolkit (in eight languages) and other resources here and register an event for WHPCD 2026 here.
• Read the free full article Pain management without excess: An essential palliative care imperative in Palliative Medicine
• Read more about opioid access in the EAPC blog.

About the author

Dr Stephen R. Connor, PhD, is Executive Director Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance (WHPCA). He has worked in the hospice and palliative care movement since 1976 including ten years as vice-president of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in America. In addition to being a hospice and association executive, he is a health services researcher, educator, advocate and psychotherapist, licensed as a clinical psychologist. X: @srconnor.

This article was originally published on 6 October 2026 on the EAPC Blog. It is republished here with permission.

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