Palliative Medicine for Health Care Professionals

Cardiff University’s Palliative Medicine for Health Care Professionals programme delivers high-quality distance education for clinicians working with neonates, children, and adults in a variety of settings around the world.

The desire to improve patient outcomes wherever palliative care is practised by its students, as well as to improve palliative care quality through research and quality improvement, is at the heart of its design and delivery.The desire to improve patient outcomes wherever palliative care is practised by its students, as well as to improve palliative care quality through research and quality improvement, is at the heart of its design and delivery.

Using the palliative care strategy as defined by the World Health Assembly in 2014 (WHO 2014) is becoming an increasingly significant need for health care providers worldwide in order to satisfy the palliative care needs of their communities. Although cancer remains a major illness burden internationally, there is an increase in the number of patients, particularly neonates and children, who require palliative care due to other diseases. These include those with learning disabilities, dementia, frailty, and the elderly with many co-morbidities.

The course’s vision is to improve patient care by providing accessible, effective education that will assist healthcare professionals in developing, sharing, and extending their knowledge, understanding, and application of evidence-based medicine, best practise, and governance frameworks in palliative care appropriate to their own professional settings.

The taught stages (years 1 and 2) encompass the fundamental concepts, frameworks, difficulties, and research findings related to optimising and growing palliative medicine and palliative care practice. The MSc (third year) allows students to pick a topic of concern in their own practice and conduct an evidence-based project that will contribute to knowledge and practice in palliative medicine and palliative care.