Big conversations

How are hospices across the UK learning from deaths to improve care? What role does the Medical Examiner process play?

Join us for this Big Conversation webinar to hear from hospice colleagues, as we explore different approaches and share best practices.

In this webinar we will be hearing from:

• Dr Ben Lobo, Consultant Geriatrician, End of Life Care and Medical Examiner
• Dr Mike Stockton, Chief Medical Officer and Consultant in Palliative Medicine, who has led this work at St Gemma’s Hospice
• Dr Grace Duffy, who has been working with the Improvement Academy to support hospices and community palliative care teams in implementing Structured Judgement Reviews (SJRs).

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What's happening with assisted dying legislation in Westminster and the Scottish Parliament? How have we responded so far, and what happens next?

We're running two Big Conversation webinars for members in England, Wales and Scotland. These sessions will provide an update on the status of assisted dying legislation, how we've engaged so far, and what to expect in the months to come.

For members in England and Wales, join us on Friday 9th May from 10:00 to 11:30. Sign up here.

For members in Scotland, join us on Tuesday 13th May from 10:30 to 12:00. Sign up here.

Join us to explore how hospices can use evidence to navigate funding flows and strengthen their commissioning conversations.

We’ll hear from:

• Sarah Scobie (Deputy Director of Research, Nuffield Trust) on understanding where the funding flows.
• Gary Stinson (Payment Development Manager, NHS England) on what’s next for currencies in hospitals and hospices
• Professor Fliss Murtagh (Professor of Palliative Care, and Director of the Wolfson Palliative Care Research Centre) on how to measure outcomes for the currencies

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In this webinar we will hear from Claire Ellis-Waghorn, Director of IT, Data and Governance for Demelza, who will present the hospice's digital transformation journey over the last four years.

The session will explore:

• the initial phase of the journey, including market testing for an agency partner, deep dive workshops, high-level process mapping and the development of a three-year strategy
• key projects delivered, with a focus on adopting a cloud-first technology approach and building a robust data management strategy
• the evolution of the strategy to place greater emphasis on people and processes
• the integration of business analytics to support informed decision-making and improve efficiency.

This session will be especially valuable for anyone involved in shaping digital strategy within your hospice.

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This Big Conversation workshop took place on 2nd April 2025. During the session, hospices across the UK came together to share tips and tricks on how to build strong relationships with elected representatives and leverage these to influence change.

Watch a recording of the session and download the slide deck.

On 18th March we were joined by the National Association for Hospice at Home (NAHH) and Association of Palliative Day Services (APDS).

They discussed the impact of services delivering care in the community and the benefits for patients and families. They considered future demand and capacity within the community, and gave an overview of the support they offer for hospice services.

Watch a recording of the session and download the slide deck.

We have produced a handbook to help all hospice staff and volunteers make sure your services are inclusive, safe and accessible for trans and gender diverse people. This resource is useful for everyone working in a hospice. It covers various levels of knowledge and experience and includes topics such as:

• language and definitions
• discrimination policy 
• clinical considerations. 
   

We launched the resource with a Big Conversation webinar on Wednesday 12th March, 2025. During the session we explored why this work is so important and shared how to use the resource.

Watch a recording of the session and download the slides

On 5th March 2025 we held a workshop on Power Query. We discussed:

• what Power Query is and how it can help
• where it can be found in Microsoft’s applications
• Power Query’s key features
• some key principles of using Power Query
• demonstrations of Power Query in action with examples that should be relevant to hospice data teams
• some areas and ideas colleagues may want to investigate further.

Watch a recording of the session and download the slides

Every year, we collate, analyse and share data about hospice services. This forms a key part of our work fighting for hospice care for all who need it, for now and forever.

On 26th February 2025, we held a Big Conversation webinar about our national hospice data collections.

Watch a recording of the session and download the slides

On 11th February 2025, we held a Big Conversations webinar about the changes to employment law that are set out in the draft Employment Rights Bill.

We were joined by Tom Parkes from Keely's Solicitors, who explored the planned changes in the Bill, including:

• day one right to unfair dismissal
• ending the practice of ‘fire and rehire’
• collective redundancy consultation
• flexible working
• statutory sick pay
• sexual harassment laws
• zero hours contracts.

He discussed plans for future changes not addressed in the Bill and the steps employers need to take to prepare.

This webinar is suitable for hospices in England, Scotland and Wales. (The Bill does not apply in Northern Ireland, where employment law is devolved). There are some clauses in the Bill that do not apply to all territories, and Tom makes this clear in the webinar.

Watch a recording and download the slides.

On 13th February 2025, we held a Big Conversations webinar about the Children’s Palliative Care Outcome Scale (C-POS).

The C-POS aims to develop and validate a person-centred outcome measure for children, young people and families who are affected by life-limiting and life-threatening conditions.

In this joint event with Together for Short Lives, we were joined by Professor Richard Harding, the Principal Investigator for C-POS.

During the webinar we explored C-POS through:

• a detailed review of the project
• personal stories
• an international perspective on the tool's development and potential.

Watch a recording and download the slides

We were joined on 14th January 2025 for a workshop about how hospices can better support people facing financial hardship.

During the workshop we:

• shared key learning from our recent report looking into financial hardship at the end of life
• shared good practice examples from within the sector
• facilitated conversation about what attendees can do differently at their hospice.

Watch a recording of the session and download the slides

Each year, we produce a report that analyses financial information and identifies trends from independent, charitable hospices based on their published accounts. Separately, we conduct a quarterly top line review of hospice finances, which enables you to compare your hospice’s performance against aggregated figures from across the sector.

We presented the most recent findings from both these activities in a webinar on 4th December 2024.

This session was not recorded but you can access the report and slides here.

During the summer of 2024 we carried out our first hospice technology maturity survey, in partnership with TES and Smartdesc. In this webinar we shared the findings of the survey.

Speakers at this session included:

• Steve Thorlby-Coy, Director of Transformation, Hospice UK
• Adam Mytton, New Business Sales Executive, TES
• Chris Wilson, Nonprofit Technology & Solutions Strategist, TES.

Watch a recording and download the slides

On 23rd October 2024 we discussed the proposed legislation on assisted dying in England and Wales, and its potential impact on hospices. We covered: 

• Hospice UK’s position on assisted dying and our activity across the UK
• a summary of the proposed legislation in Westminster and how the Bill is likely to progress
• key issues that could impact English and Welsh hospices
• how we can best engage with hospices and their staff on this issue moving forward.

Read our position on assisted dying

This workshop on 21st October 2024 was the first in a series being run with colleagues from Marie Curie and Microsoft. This series aims to share skills on data reporting and the use of Power BI.

Watch a recording of the webinar

In this workshop on 3rd July 2024, we were joined by Dr. Sabrina Bajwah from the Cicely Saunders Institute at King’s College London, Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care. Dr Bajwah facilitated a discussion about how hospices across the UK can deliver equitable palliative and end of life care to all ethnicities.

Educational film

• The discussion was informed by the educational film Shifting the focus from equality to equity, which was developed by Dr Bajwah and her team.

Helpful resources

• Bignall T and Phillips J. Improving the recording of ethnicity in health datasets: Exploring the views of community respondents and the healthcare workforce [Internet]. Race Equality Foundation; 2022 [cited 2024 Jul 11].
• Bajwah S, Koffman J, Hussain J, Bradshaw A, Hocaoglu MB, Fraser LK et al. Specialist palliative care services response to ethnic minority groups with COVID-19: equal but inequitable—an observational study. BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care [Internet]. 2021 [cited 2024 Jul 11];14:e1478–e1487.

In this webinar on 27th June 2024, we asked how complexity can be measured in the context of palliative care. We explored how increasing complexity links to the resources needed to deliver care, and how this might link to costs and reimbursement.

Speakers included Gary Stinson, Payment Development Manager, NHS England; Matthew Grant, Palliative Medicine Physician/Assistant Professor at University Medical Centre Utrecht and University of Melbourne; Fliss Murtagh, Director of the Wolfson Palliative Care Research Centre.

Download the slides from the session

• Gary Stinson and Matthew Grant's presentations
• Fliss Murtagh's presentation

Helpful resources

• ElMokhallalati Y, Bradley SH, Chapman E, Ziegler L, Murtagh FEM, Johnson M J, et al. Identification of patients with potential palliative care needs: A systematic review of screening tools in primary care. Palliative Medicine [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2024 Jul 01];34(8):989-1005.
• Grant M, de Graaf E, Teunissen S. A systematic review of classifications systems to determine complexity of patient care needs in palliative care. Palliative Medicine [Internet]. 2021 [cited 2024 Jul 01];35(4):636-650.
• Pask S, Pinto C, Bristowe K, et al. A framework for complexity in palliative care: A qualitative study with patients, family carers and professionals. Palliative Medicine [Internet]. 2018 [cited 2024 Jul 01];32(6):1078-1090.
• Marie Curie. Understanding the cost of end of life care in different settings. [Internet] Marie Curie; 2012 [cited 2024 Jul 01].
• Murtagh FEM, Guo P, Firth A, Yip KM, Ramsenthaler C, Douiri A, et al. A casemix classification for those receiving specialist palliative care during their last year of life across England: the C-CHANGE research programme. Programme Grants for Applied Research [Internet] 2023 [cited 2024 Jul 01];11(7).

On 11th June 2024 we explored the creation of a national career pathway for nurses and allied health professionals in palliative and end of life care (PEOLC). We were joined by Professor Vanessa Taylor, Huddersfield University and Lesley Goodburn, NHS England. They shared their expertise and insights on:

• the development of a core capability framework and associated qualifications, designed to enhance specialised expertise for PEOLC nurses
• the progress made so far in these initiatives and the potential implications for the clinical workforce
• how resources developed to share lived experience might support education and development.

Watch a recording and download the slides

On 23rd May 2024 we shared the key findings from our Service Activity and Workforce surveys.

This included:

• what the data from the surveys is telling us about the national picture of hospice care
• ways we can improve the data
• how we might use it to showcase the value of hospice care.

Watch a recording and download the slides

Read our summary of data about the hospice sector in the UK

We were joined on 14th May 2024 by Karen Hayllar, the Senior Lead in NHS England’s ‘Making Data Count’ team.

Karen explained the value of statistical process control (SPC) charts to analyse patient safety incident data as part of a hospice’s continuous improvement journey.

We learnt:

• the differences between quality assurance and performance management
• how recognising variation in data over time can be used to support conversations about safety and quality.

Watch a recording of the webinar