The Palliative Care Conference 2025

Online

Past and Present Supporters include:

Overview

Palliative care is essential for ensuring dignity, comfort, and emotional support for patients and
families dealing with serious illness or nearing the end of life. This conference takes on particular
significance as:

• 65% of people are worried about access to palliative care (YouGov)
• 41% think the NHS is under-resourced to provide palliative care (YouGov)
• 16th October 2024 sees the Assisted Dying Bill formally introduced to Parliament.

Join us at the Palliative Care Conference 2025 conference for healthcare professionals, offering
comprehensive insights and practical strategies to enhance end-of-life care. The event covers
essential topics, including improving palliative care accessibility, advanced care planning for
dementia and pediatric patients, and holistic care approaches that integrate compassionate
communication and family feedback. Special focus is given to the digitalisation of palliative care,
where remote caregiving and digital appointments are increasingly vital as the proportion of
people dying at their usual place of residence increases. .

Agenda

  • Registration

  • Chair’s Opening Remarks

     

     

  • Keynote: Strategies Supporting Palliative Healthcare Workers

    • Offering support networks for professionals in palliative care settings, including counselling and debriefs.
    • Guidance on strategies on how to approach senior colleagues when discussing mental health.
      Equipping frontline workers in palliative healthcare settings with the emotional tools to manage the intensity of palliative care.
    • Reducing staff absences by decreasing the workload of staff.
      Advice on how to maintain positive working relationships in palliative settings.
  • Keynote: The Current Goals of Palliative Care for the NHS:

    • Outlining the six ambitions and describe how policymakers can implement these at a ground level.
    • Recentring clinical leadership at the heart of service provider and caregiving organisations.
    • Reiterating the significance of person-centred care by maximising comfort and wellbeing
    • Increasing accessibility to care.
    • Continuing to support a highly trained, well educated and sustainable work force.
  • Questions and Answers

  • Comfort Break

  • Case Study: Dementia and Palliative Care

    • Guidance on advanced care planning: giving patients with dementia the opportunity to plan ahead on how they would like to be cared for.
    • Managing symptoms of dementia, including pain, agitation, confusion and anxiety.
    • Ensuring carers have communication techniques that support patients.
    • Lessons on how to prioritise comfort for patients with dementia.
  • Case Study: Children and Palliative Care

    • Insights into parental attitudes towards high and low standard palliative healthcare for their children.
    • Beginning bereavement support before death.
    • Reforming the access and availability of palliative healthcare for children.
    • Advanced Care Planning for children and families to reduce uncertainty with families and reduce conflict with healthcare professionals
  • Questions and Answers

  • Lunch

  • Keynote: Holistically Approaching Palliative Care

    • Practical strategies to encourage compassionate communication and shared decision making.
    • Frameworks for patient-tailored symptom management.
    • Integrating a range of healthcare professionals into the patients palliative care to ensure a personalised and well-rounded level of care.
    • Incorporating the feedback from families and patients into future caregiving.
  • Case Study: Digitalising Palliative Care

    • Outlining the benefits of remote palliative caregiving.
    • Considering the advantages of patients staying at home, especially for those with limited
      mobility.
    • Recognising the potential for enhancing digital appointments and increasing the efficiency of
      medicine management.
    • Tackling obstacles of digital communication, such as lack of direct patient/doctor feedback
      in real time.
  • Questions & Answers

  • Comfort Break

  • Case Study: Palliative Care and Assisted Dying

    • Sharing findings from Canada and Belgium where the legislative introduction of assisted dying has improved the quality of palliative care.
    • Contextualising evidence that suggests the desire for ‘a good death,’ where the person dying was cared for with compassion and provided with as much agency as possible.
    • Insights into how the government intends to legislate on assisted dying.
    • Considering the effect religion has on attitudes towards assisted dying.
  • Case Study: Death Doulas and a Personal Approach to End of Life Care

    • Lessons about a personalised approach to palliative care that addresses the emotional
      needs of patients.
    • Facilitating open and honest conversations with patients about death that seek to remove
      the stigma.
    • Learning to support patients dying with dignity by empowering them with their own care and control of their environment and final days.
    • Tools for supporting families and caregivers, including after-death support.
  • Questions and Answers

  • Chair’s Closing Remarks

  • Event End

Previous Speakers

Dr Sarah Holmes

Medical Director

Marie Curie

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Sonja McIlfatrick

Professor of Nursing and Palliative Care

Ulster University

Heidi McIntyre

Homeless Palliative Care Coordinator

St Ann’s Hospice

Peter Gibson MP

Chair

APPG: Hospice and End of Life Care

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Samantha White

Lead Nurse Specialist Palliative & End of Life Care

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

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Emma Husbands

Specialist in Palliative Medicine

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

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Gemma del toro

Service Manager/Clinical Lead, Dementia Palliative Care Team

Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust

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Laura Nohavicka

Consultant in Paediatric Palliative Care

Helen & Douglas House

Testimonials

Excellent Palliative Care Conference- gained a greater insight into community based palliative care, the issues, campaigns for change and barriers affecting the service.

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust – My Planned Care NHS

Deputy SisterOxford University NHS Foundation Trust

Fantastic speakers and opportunity for Palliative Care focus.

Head of WellbeingLongfield Community Hospice

I really found this event useful and informative.

Charge NurseSolent Trust

Very Informative.

 

Consultant PaediatricianSalford Royal NHS Foundation Trust

Why You Should Attend?

Why Attend:

  • Hear a diverse group of speakers lend their expertise and experience on palliative care.
  • Gain insights from policy-makers and those at the forefront of palliative care.
  • Get practical knowledge on providing the best care for patients from case studies that
    reflect the ever changing and dynamic nature of palliative care.
  • Gain CPD hours.

Who Should Attend?

 

Job Title Examples Organisation Type Examples
Nurses Charities
Doctors NHS Foundation Trusts
Clinical Directors Hospices
Director of Policy Care Homes
Medical Directors
Consultants

 

Pricing Options

PRIVATE SECTOR
£499.00

Your delegate place at this leading conference gives you: Full access to the conference; E-guide; Networking opportunities during the day; Access to presentations post conference; 8 CPD Points.

BOOK NOW
PUBLIC SECTOR
£360.00

Your delegate place at this leading conference gives you: Full access to the conference; E-guide; Networking opportunities during the day; Access to presentations post conference; 8 CPD Points.

BOOK NOW
VOLUNTARY SECTOR
£330.00

Your delegate place at this leading conference gives you: Full access to the conference; E-guide; Networking opportunities during the day; Access to presentations post conference; 8 CPD Points.

BOOK NOW