Research

Palliative Medicine is a rapidly expanding speciality. More opportunities are being provided for doctors and nurses who are involved in their care to study the needs of the dying.

For this reason a Masters Degree in Palliative and Supportive Care is now available at the University of Kent.

Patients who have benefited from palliative treatment, and their families, put great value on the care they have received. In order to ensure that palliative care is giving "best value for money" and that high standards of care are maintained, we have to prove that hospice care is effective.

Pilgrims Hospices is helping to ensure that palliative care meets the needs of the patient and their carers and that new ways of working are developed, evaluated, and tested before being put into practice.

Dr Andrew Thorns, Consultant in Palliative Medicine at Pilgrims Hospice Thanet is one of the Senior Lecturers in Palliative Care at the Kent Institute of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Kent and is working with Dr David Oliver there on the Masters course. Together they are working to coordinate palliative care within Kent, arranging meetings to decide the best way in which patients can be helped and which areas of care should be studied in more detail. This research shows where new developments could be of real, worthwhile benefit to patients.

It is an exciting opportunity for Pilgrims Hospices to have access to the facilities at the University, including research, information and communication technology and links to other departments and so to be at the forefront in the development of the best of care.