Already, non-hospice palliative care programs do some of this.
In 2011, 1.65 million people received hospice care, up 16 percent from 2007, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.
Friends and family can help tremendously simply by showing up, says Kathy Brandt, vice president of professional leadership, consumer and caregiver services for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.
Jersey Hospice Care provides palliative nursing care to islanders with cancer and motor neurone disease, with the majority of its patients - usually about 80 - being cared for at home.
Prof Scott Murray, St Columba's Hospice chair of primary palliative care a Edinburgh University, said while cancer patients had good support networks, that was not the case with other conditions.
But Dr David Oliver, a consultant in palliative care at a hospice in Kent, told the Five Live programme that the majority of people with motor neurone disease are able to die a peaceful death if they have good palliative care.
Although elderly patients may qualify for a variety of Medicare-paid services, hospice care is supposed to be limited to terminally ill patients receiving palliative care.
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Josie Dwyer, head of palliative care services at the hospice met the duchess during her visit.
An Essex hospice in "desperate need" for palliative care facilities is appealing over a council's refusal of a new site on green belt land.
Their letter says the new treatment pattern of palliative care, based on experience at a Liverpool hospice is being rolled out into hospitals and nursing homes.
Further developments are planned at Jersey Hospice to deal with an expected increase in the number of people needing palliative care.
Yet for all its successes, the hospice movement faces challenges that will far outstrip the resources now dedicated to palliative care, even in the richest countries.
It also said there were problems discharging patients to other hospitals, the community or nursing homes and said palliative care services were still limited, despite the opening of St Giles Hospice in 2011.
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