Tools for a Changing World

SPPC Annual Conference

John McIntyre Conference Centre, Edinburgh

28 October 2026

Changing demographics, financial pressures, widening inequalities and evolving social structures are making for “interesting” times.  This year’s SPPC conference aims to bring ideas and approaches to help you survive in an increasingly challenging and sometimes tough working environment. 

We always try to make our conference relevant to your realities.  For the last two years 100% of delegates told us that the conference was relevant to their work. The SPPC Team is looking forward to welcoming you to an informative and energizing day. 

The conference will feature: 

• A strong line-up of local and international speakers (more detail below) 

• Time and space to catch-up with colleagues and make useful new connections 

• Posters and rapid-fire presentations sharing innovation from across Scotland and beyond 

Book Now!  Book your place here. Early bird rate ends on 18th September.

Call for Posters and Exhibitors

Are you involved in an interesting project or in an area of work that you would like to share with others?   Check out our Call for Posters here: Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care | SPPC Annual Conference 2026

Programme

We are assembling a great line-up of speakers.  Confirmed sessions so far include:

Technologies in palliative care for older people

Mark Taubert, Professor at Cardiff University School of Medicine; Hospital Consultant & Clinical Director at Velindre University NHS Trust.

Mark’s academic activities include advance care planning and new media in medical settings. He is the founder of TalkCPR.com and chairs the national Future Care Planning strategy group for the NHS Wales Executive. He has advised UK government on matters relating to palliative care and the last years of life. Public engagement efforts include a Ted Talk, various BBC programmes and writing for international news outlets like the Washington Post, Newsweek, Spectator and the Guardian. 

Understanding the economic evidence on palliative care: what do we know, where should we go next?

Peter May, PhD, Academic Health Economist at the Cicely Saunders Institute, King’s College London, UK, and Adjunct Associate Professor in Health Economics at the School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin Ireland.

Peter’s research covers three principal areas aiming to improve care for adults with serious illness and their families. First, he works with interdisciplinary teams to design and run intervention studies, including national and international trials. Second, he works with clinicians and policymakers to make better use of routine and secondary data in estimating population health needs and costs, and evaluating models of care. Third, he applies the principles of economics as a decision science in the hope of advancing understanding of how patients, families and clinicians make choices in navigating advanced disease and end-of-life choices.

Learning from a Compassionate Connectors programme: social needs, community assets and economic impact

Samar Aoun AM, Perron Institute Research Chair in Palliative Care, University of Western Australia; Chair, Compassionate Communities Australia

Samar is known as an innovator and a champion of practice and policy translation, with greater community involvement in palliative care and a closer integration of formal and informal networks. She has a public health approach and a focus on under-served groups such as people with Motor Neurone Disease, dementia, terminally ill people who live alone and family caregivers before and after bereavement. Her research programs on supporting family caregivers at end of life and the public health approach to bereavement care have informed policy and practice at the national and international levels.  Her vision is that every person, every family and every community know how to support someone who is caring, dying or grieving.

A general practice perspective on inequalities and palliative care

Carey Lunan, Chair of the Deep End Project in Scotland

Carey Lunan worked as an NHS GP for 20 years, mostly in areas of high socio-economic deprivation, including homeless services.  She is the Chair of the Scottish Deep End Project, and is currently on secondment from clinical work, as a Senior Medical Advisor to Scottish Government on Health Inequalities.  She is an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at Edinburgh University, involved in teaching on Inclusion Health and research on the Inverse Care Law and is the past-Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners in Scotland.  Carey is a passionate advocate for the particular role of general practice in addressing health inequalities, and in creating the conditions to support sustainable, compassionate and trauma-informed practice.

Similar but different? Exploring the paradigms, practices, and opportunities for palliative care and geriatrics  

Erica Borgstrom, Professor of Medical Anthropology at The Open University

Erica’s specialist area in research and teaching is death and dying, with an emphasis on end-of-life care. At The Open University, she is a Director of the Centre for Open Thanatology, where there is a focus on research and education related to a wide range of topics addressing dying, death, bereavement and grief. She was an editor of Mortality and a council member of the Association for the Study of Death and Society. She is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA).

Book your place

Book Now! Book your place here before 18th September to get the early bird rate.