How spirituality is integrated system-wide in the Netherlands Palliative Care National Programme

Abstract

After the decline of the compartmentalization of Dutch society, where healthcare was being organized along confessional/denominational lines, spirituality became neglected or implicit for decades in the Netherlands healthcare system. During the modernization of healthcare in the 1960s, the development of professional language concerning chaplaincy and psychosocial care in a secularizing society created a blind spot for this fundamental dimension of care. From the moment palliative care in the Netherlands became part of a national programme, healthcare providers, policymakers, and researchers were presented with the challenge of reassessing this complex concept. National policy and personal initiatives on research and education connected in an inspiring process that led to a Dutch, consensus-based national guideline for multidisciplinary spiritual care as part of palliative care, the adjustment of the professional standard of healthcare chaplaincy in the Netherlands, and the initiative for a European taskforce on spiritual care. In the appendices of this paper the first English-language summary of the Dutch guideline on spiritual care and the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) definition of spirituality are presented.