As a health or social care professional supporting people at the end of life, do you feel confident and competent to support and care for people with advanced dementia and their carers?
As part of a whole new learning programme here at St Christopher’s CARE to upskill clinicians and colleagues working in all settings to better understand and support the growing number of people with dementia at the end of life, we’ve created this new flexible three-day course.
And, to meet the needs of people with busy working schedules and different areas of interest and expertise, we’ve created a flexible course. That means learners can choose to complete all three days, any two, or just the one that most suits their needs.
Register now to ensure you’re ready to provide the very best care for people with advanced dementia at the end of life.
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
This course is pitched at an intermediate level and is suitable for nurses, doctors, social workers, occupational therapists, paramedics, physiotherapists and speech and language therapists.
Your course tutors are listed below
Emma was appointed as a consultant in palliative medicine at St Christopher’s in 2003. Her current clinical practice is based in the community team. Emma is an experienced educational and clinical supervisor and is currently the medical lead for education at St Christopher’s. Her special interests are diabetes at the end of life, medicines management (she chairs the medicines committee) and working with care homes and GPs.
Mary is an experienced community facilitator and researcher, and is interested in how people understand societal challenges and want to create change.
Mary has a PhD on how people perceive inequality and why they seek to change it, and has worked in charities, social innovation and change leadership programmes as well as on international research and action initiatives.
She currently leads a team of people creating participation opportunities, new initiatives and tackling societal challenges with community members and professionals in London.
Dr Joy Ross trained at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Medical School. She completed her PhD at Imperial College, London, studying the pharmacogenetics of response to opioids.
She has worked as a Palliative Care Consultant at St Joseph’s Hospice, London and then at the Royal Marsden and Royal Brompton Palliative Care Service and is currently working at St Christopher’s Hospice with a specialist interest in developing palliative care services for the frail elderly and those with non-malignant disease including heart failure.
Clare Ellis-Smith is a Lecturer in Palliative Care at Cicely Saunders Institute, King’s College London. She completed her PhD in the development and evaluation of a measure to improve assessment and management of symptoms and concerns for people with dementia at King’s College London. Clare graduated with a BSc Occupational Therapy from University of Cape Town. She has an extensive clinical background in older adult mental health and particularly dementia. Her research focuses on assessment and measurement, and developing and evaluating complex interventions to improve the quality of life people living with dementia and their families.
Dr Victor Pace is the Consultant in Palliative Medicine at Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, Kent. He trained in palliative medicine in London and after posts in Brighton and Eastbourne was a consultant at St Christopher’s Hospice for 19 years. In the early 1990s he developed a special interest in the palliative care of people with dementia and was on National Hospice Council, NICE and National End of Life Care programme working groups which worked to develop this area. He led the first project to look at the palliative care needs and service provision for people with dementia while at St Christopher’s. He left about St Christopher’s four years ago to take up his current post providing a palliative medicine service in a general hospital.
Day One Programme – 29 June 2022:
| 10.00 | Welcome and Introductions |
| 10.30 | Recognising when the end of life is approaching in relation to people living with dementia – Dr Joy Ross |
| 11.30 | Coffee |
| 11.45 | Symptom management at the end of life for people living with dementia – Clare Ellis-Smith |
| 12.30 | Lunch |
| 13.00 | Nutrition in advanced dementia – Dr Victor Pace |
| 13.45 | Using legal and ethical frameworks to optimise advance care planning conversations in patients with dementia – Dr Emma Hall |
| 14.15 | Family caregivers: The emotional labour of caring for a loved one with dementia at the end of life – Mary Hodgson |
| 15.00 | Close and evaluation |
If you have any questions about this or any of our other courses, please contact the Education team who will be happy to help
At St Christopher's, a registered charity, it is important for us to maximise any surpluses to reinvest in the objectives of the charity.
Unfortunately, the manner in which we undertake our training currently means we are not able to invest as much of our surplus as possible, therefore from the 1 December 2017, St Christopher’s Education Centre will charge VAT at the standard rate on our training courses, the reason for this change in pricing is twofold:
i) We want to be able to reinvest any surpluses made from training back into all of our charitable objectives rather than only Education
ii) We want to be able to reclaim the VAT on costs relating to developing and running the training courses