Division of Supportive and Palliative Care
2026/09/23
The Division of Supportive and Palliative Care (DSPC) is a specialist division under the Department of Medicine at the National University Hospital (NUH). We provide holistic, person-centred care to patients with serious life-limiting illnesses, in line with their individual values and preferences.
While palliative care has traditionally focused on patients with cancer, those without cancer are known to have needs that are just as complex and intense. The DSPC was established to address this gap, providing dedicated supportive and palliative care to people with a wide range of serious medical conditions. Our team works closely with subspecialists across different disciplines, empowering them to provide generalist palliative care within their respective scopes of practice, while offering specialist input for patients with more complex needs.
Beyond the hospital, we partner with community-based services to ensure that patients with serious illnesses receive care at the site best suited to their needs — whether in the hospital or in the comfort of their own homes.
Our specialists provide inpatient, outpatient, and community-based palliative care services.
Inpatient Referral Service
The DSPC accepts specialist palliative care referrals for inpatients under the Department of Medicine with complex needs. Our team provides co-management alongside the primary treating teams, with a focus on symptom assessment, comfort-directed care, psycho-emotional support, and goals-of-care discussions for patients with serious illnesses.
Outpatient Service
We run specialist outpatient clinics for patients with serious life-limiting illnesses. Working in a co-management model with specialists from different disciplines, we aim to provide the best possible care in a sustainable manner, while supporting the development of generalist palliative care skills across the hospital.
Palliative Care in the Community
The DSPC accepts specialist palliative care referrals for patients admitted under NUHS@Home, the cluster’s Mobile Inpatient Care @ Home (MIC@Home) service. This allows patients to receive the appropriate symptom-directed and psycho-emotional support at home alongside treatment for their acute medical conditions. The division also works closely with community-based palliative care services such as Palliative Home Care (Home Hospice), aiming to build increasingly seamless transitions of care between the hospital and patients’ homes.
The DSPC is committed to improving the delivery of palliative care across different settings through education and research. We provide palliative care training for doctors and nurses across the hospital, and conduct research aimed at improving the standards of end-of-life care. We collaborate with the NUH Value Driven Outcomes team to adopt a data-driven approach to ensuring high-quality and appropriate care for people diagnosed with serious illnesses.
