Although the definition of palliative medicine is common to all countries, the implementation of its goals varies between countries and continents. The vision for palliative care is similar – all terminally ill people eligible for palliative care and their families/carers should have access to high quality, culturally appropriate palliative care services. These services should be provided in a specialised and coordinated manner. The practical implementation of these assumptions is influenced by many factors, both economic opportunities of individual countries, human resources and cultural considerations. I would like to present palliative care systems both in selected European countries and on other continents. This section will present the assumptions of palliative care in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, countries which almost simultaneously started the development of palliative medicine.