The presented final thesis deals with the issue of providing nursing care to palliative patients at the end of their life. It also provides an overview of the basic competencies that nurses need to possess and continuously develop in order to be able to provide professional care for patients in the lethal phase of their disease. In the introductory part of this thesis, there is a definition of the basic concepts of palliative care and hospice, as well as the overview of the development of the hospice movement in the world and in the Republic of Croatia. The thesis follows with the presentation of the legislative framework that regulates palliative care in the Republic of Croatia. Furthermore, the thesis presents basic and specific tasks that medical nurses perform while providing direct care to a dying patient. Such tasks refer to treating of pain and alleviating some physical ailments of hospice patients, as well as to the skills that are directed towards establishing of communication and providing emotional and spiritual support to dying patients. In addition to direct care for dying patients, hospice nurses are also providing psychological support to family members of the dying patient. They also need to have organizational skills required to coordinate the work of a professional hospice team. In their nature, all tasks performed by a hospice nurse are multidisciplinary, since they include medical, professional and technical knowledge, but also the emotional intelligence, empathy and personal involvement of the nurse in palliative care. Since there is evident aging of population and prolonged life expectancy, hospice care in the future will be an important part of general health care. Therefore, there will be a deficit of nurses trained to work with dying patients. This paper emphasizes the particularities of hospice care and nursing profession and stresses out the importance nursing care of dying patients, all with the aim to to raise awareness of the need to develop quality palliative care in the overall health care system.