Children's Supportive Care / Palliative Care

The Pediatric Palliative Care Service consists of the Children's Supportive Care Team and the NC Children's Hospital Pediatric Palliative Care Committee.

Palliative care for children is focused on relieving suffering and improving quality of life.

The Children's Supportive Care Team is designed to aid children with serious illness and their families with the following:

Pain and symptom management
Complex decision-making
Parent and sibling support
End of life planning
Bereavement care for families

Consults are available on all inpatient pediatric services. To request a consult, please call the hospital operator at 984-974-4131 and ask to page the Children's Supportive Care Team.

For more information, email the Children's Supportive Care Team at cscareteam@unc.edu.

The NC Children's Hospital Pediatric Palliative Care Committee is an interdisciplinary committee established to provide education for patients, families, and staff and to develop a clinical service. Our vision is to lead the provision of family centered palliative care, to teach the practices and principles of palliative care based on compassion and research, and to demonstrate a model of care that is interdisciplinary and addresses the physical, spiritual, developmental, and emotional needs of children and their families. The committee chair can be reached at ppccommittee@unc.edu.

Ethics consultations

An ethics consultation may help whenever the health care team, the patient, or the patient’s family has an unresolved ethical concern (e.g. uncertainty with decision making, conflicting values, disagreement over treatment options, moral distress, complex medical situations). To request assistance from the Hospital Ethics Committee, please call 919-843-1470. Calls will be returned Monday-Friday between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. A consultation can offer recommendations that the members of the health care team, the patient, or the patient’s family, may use in their decision making. For more information, please visit our website.