St Christopher’s Multi-Professional Academy

St Christopher’s Hospice, based in London, UK is recognised as the first modern hospice in the world. Established by Dame Cicely Saunders in 1967 it has played an active role in the development of hospice and palliative care services across the UK and in other parts of the world over the last 50 years.

Dame Cicely founded an organisation committed to education and research alongside the delivery of palliative care – and that remains the story of our hospice today. Every year we provide care and support for over 6,500 people and an education programme to enhance the skills and knowledge of over 2,000 more.

St Christopher’s also plays an active role in research; recent research areas have been around patient outcomes, new service models (particularly for an ageing population) and public health. The hospice employs over 500 staff and is supported by over 1,300 dedicated volunteers.

St Christopher’s vision is of a world in which all dying people and those close to them have access to the care and support they need, when and wherever they need it. To that end we are keen to work alongside individuals and organisations from different parts of the world to exchange ideas, skills and plans for palliative and end of life care, and its future.

This collaboration enriches and improves our own work, as well as hopefully contributing to the success of other organisations. Our education and training programmes are key to this approach, bringing together a mix of individuals committed to similar aims to learn together to find new solutions to the problems of suffering on the part of people who are dying or bereaved.

Our education programme embraces an international audience. For example, we were recently honoured to be part of a program to deliver a good quality training programme which is affordable to participants from low- and middle-income countries at the request of the World Health Organisation (WHO), as part of its designation as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Community Participation in Palliative Care and Long-term Care.

This Fellowship in Palliative Care Program is conducted by Institute of Palliative Medicine, Calicut, India and run by the Institute of Palliative Medicine, India in partnership with Sanjeevan Palliative Care Project, Pondicherry, India. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka, Bangladesh, is the academic partner for the programme. The six- month course is designed as a distance education program with contact sessions based on principles of adult learning. If you would like to know more, please contact Dr Suresh Kumar via fellowship.palliativecare@gmail.com

St Christopher’s Multi Professional Academy, offered at our Education Centre in South London, is a well established knowledge sharing and learning programme for an international audience. This five day multi-disciplinary programme gives experienced palliative care health and social care professionals from anywhere in the world, who wish to evaluate and develop their services, the opportunity to observe and reflect on services provided by St Christopher’s. In addition, delegates will be encouraged to reflect on wider contemporary issues and the implications for developing palliative care practice within their own setting and culture.

The programme offers structured facilitation so that each person is clear what is relevant to their own specific care setting and a plan for implementing their learning into practice. The programme combines practice observation facilitated by senior hospice clinicians with classroom presentations, group discussions and individual action planning. It also offers the opportunity to participate in an ongoing online learning community. Our next five day course commences on Monday 7 October 2019.

Every year, financial support is available to individuals interested in attending the Multi Professional Academy as we want those people most likely to benefit from the opportunity to be able to attend.  Applications for funding will be assessed on this basis. Our website provides more details of the criteria for support and how to apply at www.stchristophers.org.uk/mpacademy.

We are extremely proud to be continuing Dame Cicely’s inspiring legacy of delivering a range of training programmes to students from all over the world to help improve end of life care and palliative care wherever it is needed. If you would like to find out more about how we could support learning for you or your organisation, please contact us and we will be very happy to help.

Please either telephone our Education team on +44 (0)20 8768 4656, email our team at education@stchristophers.org.uk or visit our website for information about all our other courses at www.stchristophers.org.uk/education

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