Palliative and End of Life Care - an Awareness Day (Online)

Thursday 18th September 2025 9:30 am - 4:00 pm

Tuesday 20th January 2026 9:30 am - 4:00 pm

Online via Zoom

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Who should attend:

Would you like to gain awareness about palliative and end of life care?

Gain confidence in supporting individuals who are dying?

Learn how to talk about death and dying and what might be important in the future? If so, this may be the course for you.

Open to any health or social care professional who wishes to gain a basic awareness about palliative and end of life care.
Also suitable for care home staff, social care providers, allied health professionals and anyone with an interest in palliative care.

Course Aims:

To provide an overview of what palliative care can offer to individuals.

Objectives:

To identify when individuals are deteriorating
To recognise dying and the care individuals need
To state the importance of effective communication
To describe approaches to future planning
To state what normal grief looks like and what help bereaved individuals may need

Presented by

Amy Smissen

Lecturer Practitioner/ Community Occupational Therapist

Amy is a qualified Occupational Therapist with 25 years experience working in both clinical and leadership roles. With a passion for the palliative rehab approach to empower patients to self-manage Amy enjoys sharing her knowledge and skills within the team and wider audiences.

Throughout her career she has worked in a range of settings including a community learning disability team, an inpatient neurological rehab unit and a local charity providing support to people living with long-term neurological conditions.

Amy joined the Hospice of St Francis in 2023 and works 3 days a week in the Community Team, bringing her unique OT perspective to enable community patients to optimise their function and ultimately, their overall quality of life. Amy has always enjoyed facilitating therapeutic groupwork sessions, running workshops and training sessions both for patients and carers and with fellow clinicians. These skills lend themselves well to her Lecturer Practitioner role, which she took on in early 2024.

Dee Cooke

Lecturer Practitioner/ Nurse

Dee started her nursing career in a general hospital on both medicine and gynae wards. Passionate about developing people and empowering them with skills and knowledge to provide excellent care to their patients her lecturer practitioner role is a perfect fit.

Dee has worked in a range of settings including a community team, care home improvement team and clinical skills facilitator team.

Dee joined the team in April 2024 and works clinically alongside delivering end of life care education.

Dee is passionate about supporting staff to get it right even in stressful situations.