Every health system in the register, one set of questions

The worked example in this register. The design playbook applies the six questions to a proposed palliative care training program here.

The one case in the set where a single statute is visible in the national morphine curve.

The clearest case of prescriber-scope reform paired with public supply.

A Muslim-majority South Asian country with one of the thinnest published evidence bases in the register.

The highest-consuming middle-income country in the register's opioid sales series, and the case where service building and reimbursement are documented in sequence.

A high-income country with low recorded opioid sales, an example that income alone does not bring opioid access.

An Eastern Mediterranean country with low recorded opioid sales.

Regulatory liberalization inside a controlled political environment, carried by ministerial instruments rather than statute.

Cited for embedding palliative care into a national community health system under a standalone national policy.

Muslim-majority, middle-income, with a national specialty credentialing structure. The case where recognition ran ahead of coverage.

An Eastern Mediterranean country with a single dominant anchor cancer institution, a national strategy, and consumption that remains low regardless.

A low-income South Asian country where terrain and referral distances shape access.

The second African case after Uganda, with devolved county health financing rather than a single national route.

The largest Muslim-majority population in the set, with a national insurance scheme and an archipelagic delivery problem.

An Eastern Mediterranean country with a national cancer plan carried by a foundation rather than the ministry.

The largest population in the African set, federated across states with separate health budgets.

A middle-income archipelago that wrote palliative care into its universal health care and cancer control statutes without a standalone law, which makes the gap between statute and delivery testable.

A South Asian country with free public healthcare and strong primary coverage, which isolates regulation from access to a clinician.

A middle-income country that legislated a right to palliative care, which tests whether a statutory right moves supply.

A low-density, resource-limited country often cited for building a national palliative care programme through the WHO public health model, which tests how far care can reach beyond the capital.

A middle-income country that rebuilt its opioid prescribing system on an electronic platform, which tests whether a monitoring system can widen access rather than restrict it.

An Eastern Mediterranean country that manufactures opioid medicines domestically for a large addiction treatment system, which separates the capacity to produce opioids from the will to use them for pain.

An East African neighbour of Uganda listed among countries where nurses may prescribe morphine, which tests whether Uganda's prescriber model transfers across a border.

A low-income country with national oral morphine production and a reputation for nurse prescribing, which tests whether task-shifted prescribing holds up in law.

A country where palliative care for advanced cancer is a funded legal guarantee, the counter-case to mandates without money.

Universal coverage paired with district health system delivery and dedicated palliative funding, the Asian comparator for a community health worker route.

A conflict-affected country in the Eastern Mediterranean Region's lower development cluster, which shows where palliative care stands when conflict and fragmented financing coincide.

A large NGO hospice sector followed by a national policy to integrate palliative care into public services, which tests whether NGO-led growth can stand in for legal and public-system change.

A large, low-income federal country that started and then lost domestic oral morphine production, which tests how durable a single-manufacturer supply is.

An Eastern Mediterranean country that scores well on policy and education indicators but went through a financial collapse, which tests whether those gains translate into access and survive a crisis.

A Latin American high performer on palliative care development indicators, with a national pain and palliative care centre inside a single public health system.

A post-Soviet country that rewrote police-linked narcotics rules for palliative care, the most direct precedent in the register for changing licensing and dispensing rules.

A post-Soviet country where multi-signature, police-overseen prescribing met a donor-funded push for palliative care, which tests what survives when pilot funding ends.

A high-income universal system with subsidized palliative medicines, a recognized specialty and a national outcomes benchmarking program, alongside tightening opioid controls.

A social health insurance system that made specialist home palliative care a legal entitlement and keeps tight opioid rules alongside high medical opioid use.

The most populous system in the register, building hospice care through national pilots, which tests whether policy-led expansion can overcome tight opioid control and missing financing.

A lower-resource system where the ministry, donor-funded hospices and government hospitals have worked together to apply the WHO public health model for palliative care.

An NGO-led hospice movement that worked with government to rewrite restrictive opioid law and bring palliative care into insurance and national regulation.

Palliative care built from NGO and donor roots inside a reformed national purchaser system, and a rare published case of pain relief under full-scale war.

An ageing high-income system with universal insurance that built specialist palliative services through cancer-control law while therapeutic opioid use stayed low.

A universal insurance system that legislated hospice care and end-of-life treatment decisions in one act, a test case for law-led palliative care.

A federated public system where provinces set drug coverage and prescribing standards during an overdose crisis, which tests how to protect palliative opioid access while tightening controls.

A decentralized tax-funded system that includes Catalonia's long-running WHO demonstration program, a regional model for scaling palliative care inside universal coverage.

One of the largest universal public health systems, with a tightly controlled opioid regime and a recently formalized palliative care agenda.

Comparatively high regional opioid availability inside a mixed public, social insurance and private system, a contrast case for how fragmented coverage shapes access.

A tax-funded national health service alongside charity-funded hospices, with a long-recognized palliative medicine specialty and non-medical prescribing of controlled drugs. Also a high-consumption reference point on the opioid sales scale.

A high-income system where a national hospice insurance benefit, fast-growing hospital palliative care and specialist certification sit alongside tight opioid controls. Also the upper reference point on the opioid sales scale.