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.