This course is amongst the UK’s leading courses for palliative care nurses, pharmacists and doctors. Almost 350 people attended to date in 2024. For nearly 50 years it has delivered cutting edge knowledge and skills to healthcare practitioners so they can provide their patients with the best possible care. Dr Mary Miller has led the course since 2008, developing a unique course each year.
Organisations get value for money as the course delivers high standards of professional knowledge, is educationally sound allowing staff time for discussion and supports staff in setting continuing educational goals for the year following the course.
Feedback in 2024: ‘I continue to be very impressed by the high standards, excellent content and fantastic facilitation’
Any surplus income generated is ploughed back into education - as we are a charity.
In 2025, we will run a face to face course in Oxford and Newcastle. Lectures will be recorded and made available to all delegates attending the face to face courses as part of their supporting educational resources.
The option to watch the recordings is available for people who are unable to attend the face to face courses - see virtual course on our website.
The full programme will be confirmed shortly, please see the current draft programme: DRAFT Newcastle OAC Programme LINK
5 places for the price of 4
This offer is available to individuals from the same organisation.
To take advantage of this offer, please follow these steps:
- Book all five places and pay by invoice: Book each place individually through our website (required to capture each delegate's details). Please select pay by invoice rather than PayPal.
- Email us: As soon as possible after booking, please email Karen at [email protected] with the names of all five delegates who have booked.
Location: Dame Margaret Barbour Building, Newcastle University
CPD Credits: 12 CPD credits planned
+ Venue
A fabulous new venue in Newcastle University, with great AV facilities to support learning.
Dame Margaret Barbour Building, Newcastle University, King's Gate, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
+ Speakers
Confirmed speakers:
Dr Victoria Bradley - Consultant and Clinical Lead of the department of palliative care, Oxford
Dr Bradley is a Consultant in and Clinical Lead for Palliative Medicine at The Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Oxford. Director of Medical School Programme for Palliative Medicine at the University of Oxford. Victoria trained at the University of Cambridge and completed her specialty training in London before relocating to Thames Valley where she has been a consultant since 2019. Special Interests in management of painful bone metastases (OxMINT), paediatric to adult transition, improving access to palliative medicine and Clinical Ethics.
Dr Victoria Hedges - Consultant Palliative Medicine, Oxford
Dr Hedges is a palliative medicine consultant in Oxford. She has an interest in the evaluation of opioid use in palliative care and beyond. Clinically, Dr Hedges works across many areas of palliative medicine and in supportive care for renal and haematology patients. Dr Hedges leads on end of life care improvement and tissue donation in her NHS trust.
Dr Sarah Bishop Browne - Consultant Palliative Medicine, New South Wales, Australia
Dr Bishop Browne is a Palliative and Supportive Care specialist at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse. She has experience caring for patients with complex symptoms in inpatient and ambulatory care settings as well as at home in the community. Sarah works as part of an interdisciplinary team which includes nursing, allied health and complementary therapists to deliver whole person care. By targeting the pillars of health: sleep, stress management, connection and relationships, movement and diet, Sarah believes that patients with cancer can thrive at any stage of their illness journey. Sarah has a research interest in quality improvement, particularly in relation to optimising patient outcomes and safety at transitions of care.
Dr Kirsten Smith - Department of experimental psychology, University of Oxford
Dr Smith's interests include psychological and neurobiological responses to traumatic experiences and the clinical translation of experimental research. Her DPhil research focused on increasing our understanding of the processes involved in an intense or enduring grieving process or Prolonged Grief (PG) with a view to developing more effective psychological treatments to manage distress. Dr Smith was awarded an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship to develop and provide initial empirical support for a new therapist-assisted digital cognitive therapy for Prolonged Grief Disorder (ICT- PG).
Dr Paul Howard - Consultant Palliative Medicine and Editor in chief of the Palliative Care Formulary
Dr Howard is a consultant in palliative medicine at Mountbatten Hospice and St Mary’s Hospital on the Isle of Wight. He has a strong interest in palliative therapeutics, particularly adapting medication approaches to make them suitable for delivery in people’s own homes. He leads the hospice medicines safety and optimisation team and sits on the local and regional prescribing committees. He is an editor-in-chief for the Palliative Care Formulary, focusing particularly on palliative neuropharmacology. He also supports the wider development of therapeutics research, e.g. through Data Safety Monitoring Committee work.
Dr Ariel Dempsey - DPhil student, Faculty of theology and religion, University of Oxford
Dr Dempsey earned her MD at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and is at University of Oxford completing a DPhil Science & Religion. She studies uncertainty in end-of-life care and how we can better deal with uncertainty in medicine. Her DPhil is on "Palliating Uncertainty," emphasizing an approach to uncertainty that is modelled after the ethos and values of palliative care and draws on tools from the philosophy of pragmatism. She helps design and teach a Medical Humanities Curriculum for the Oxford Medical School and is a Rotary Global Grant Scholar who has led trauma healing groups in Oxford. After the PhD, Ariel plans to do residency in psychiatry with fellowship in palliative care.
Dr Mary Miller - Course Lead. Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Sobell House, Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer in Palliative Medicine, University of Oxford, Director OxCERPC (Oxford Centre for education and research in palliative care) and Clinical Lead for NACEL
Dr Miller qualified from University College Cork, Ireland in 1988. She trained and worked in palliative medicine in Ireland, Sweden and the UK and has been a consultant in palliative medicine in Oxford since 1998. Dr Miller has a strong interest in education; completing a Diploma in Learning and Teaching at Oxford University 2005, was Training Programme Director and Regional Specialty Advisor (2002 – 2008) and has led the Oxford Advanced Courses in Pain and Symptom Management since 2005. She is an elected member of the Education Committee of the Association of Palliative Medicine and joint lead of the postgraduate education special interest forum. Since the inception of OxCERPC in 2017, Dr Miller and the team are focusing on building an exciting portfolio of courses, building research readiness and reaching out to practitioners across the globe.
Professor Jason Boland - Professor and Honorary Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Wolfson Palliative Care Research Centre, Hull York Medical School, University of Hull, UK
Prof Boland is a Professor and honorary consultant in palliative medicine at Hull & York Medical School and North East Lincolnshire. He qualified in medicine from the University of Cambridge in 1999, with an MA in neuroscience. He completed his higher specialist training in palliative medicine in Sheffield, where for his PhD he performed a systematic analysis of the in vitro effect of opioids on adaptive and innate immune function. He is an associate editor for BMJ Supportive and Palliative Care and is on the editorial board for the journal Palliative Medicine. He is the PI on a study into patient-related outcomes for malignant bowel obstruction. He has over 100 peer-reviewed publications and is revising the malignant bowel obstruction chapter in the oxford textbook of palliative medicine.
Professor Matthew Maddocks - Professor of Health Services Research and Rehabilitation, Kings College London
Professor Matthew Maddocks is an academic physiotherapist. He completed a PhD on the role of exercise in cancer cachexia in 2010 and has since held National Institute of Health Research post-doctoral, clinical trials and career development fellowships. He is a co-lead for the Palliative & End of Life Care theme of the NIHR Applied Research Collaborative for South London. Professor Maddocks leads a team undertaking applied clinical and health services research that advances rehabilitation and palliative care for people with serious illness, through improved management of complex symptoms including breathlessness, fatigue, weakness, and syndromes including cachexia, sarcopenia and frailty.
Dr Jessica Lee - Clinical Fellow telehealth, Marymount Hospice, Republic of Ireland
Biography to follow shortly.
+ Course Programmes
A full programme is to follow shortly.
Dr Sarah Bishop Browne: Overview of the management of oral health in the palliative care population. Dr Bishop Browne will speak about oral candidiasis, considering management strategies in a time of antimicrobial stewardship.
Dr Victoria Bradley: An overview of the current evidence for the management of metastatic bone pain and then a description of targeted service improvement and evaluation of that initiative in Oxford University Hospitals.
Dr Ariel Dempsey: Palliating Uncertainty: Tools from the Pragmatism of William James, MD. Dr Dempsey will introduce an approach to uncertainty called ‘Palliating Uncertainty,’ which brings together William James’ pragmatism with the ethos of palliative care. From this perspective, uncertainty is not always something to be ‘cured’ with more knowledge or technology, but something to palliate and live with.
Dr Victoria Hedges: Opioid-induced neurotoxicity: a review of the literature and clinical practice. Dr Hedges will summarise the literature on the prevalence, symptoms and risk factors for opioid-induced neurotoxicity. She will use this evidence and clinical data on OIN to discuss approaches to minimizing risk and managing OIN.
Dr Paul Howard: Latest updates from the Palliative Care Formulary.
Dr Jessica Lee: Dr Lee will present the evidence base on problematic opioid use as well as the results of the international study she leads, which looks at clinician awareness of the predictors of problematic use.
Dr Mary Miller: Dr Miller will review the top 2024/25 publications on topics from the 2024 Oxford Advanced Courses. She will present the frontrunners, providing you with a reading list to support both your personal learning and your journal clubs for 2025/26.
Dr Kirsten Smith: Dr Smith will present the results of her work on prolonged grief disorder, setting this work in the context of the current evidence base for grief. Dr Smith will also describe her upcoming intervention study.
Prof Jason Boland: The management of nausea and gastrointestinal obstruction.
Prof Matthew Maddocks: Non-pharmacological management of breathlessness.
+ Course Aims
The course aims to provide participants with:
- Knowledge to inform and update your practice
- Knowledge that is delivered by expert speakers
- Knowledge that develops between the speakers and the audience during questions and discussions
- Resources that can be used over the following 12 months to develop and extend your learning
- Resources that will support you to bring learning back to your workplace
- Resources that will help you develop your portfolio of evidence for appraisal and revalidation
- A means of ensuring your practice is at the cutting edge
- Time for thinking, questions and reflection
