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 and district nursing perspective on inequalities and palliative care

Carey Lunan, GP, Chair of the Deep End Project in Scotland

Kaye Nicoll, Lead DN, NHS Lothian

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).

Deans Buchanan Consultant in Palliative Medicine, NHS Tayside

Deans is Co-lead/founder of both the Scottish National Acute Palliative Care Network and Tayside Palliative Care Network. He completed his MD in 2010 and is an Honorary Clinical Reader at University of Dundee where he Co-directs the Masters in Public Health (Palliative Care Research) and has previously supervised PhD research around use of unscheduled care for people who died from cancer. He is the  Specialty Advisor to the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, a member of The Scottish Government Palliative Care Advisory Group, Co-Chair of the Palliative Care Strategy’s Data and Experiences Delivery group and sits on the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care’s Council. He’s a father of three daughters, has two dogs and spends most of his free time - trying to keep up.

Lynsey Fielden Consultant in Ageing and Health & Movement Disorders, NHS Forth Valley

Advanced Dementia

Jenni Burton, University of Glasgow

Jenni Burton is a clinical academic geriatrician based at the University of Glasgow. She works clinically in NHS Lanarkshire in acute and community hospital settings and in the Hospital at Home service. Her research is primarily focused on improving health care and support for people living in care homes, with a particular focus on those living with advanced dementia.

Lorna Reid, Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice

Lorna Reid is Lead for Education and Collaborative Training at the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice, Glasgow. In 2010 she supported the implementation and evaluation of the first Namaste Care Programme in Scotland.

Namaste Care is a non-pharmacological strengths-based model of palliative care developed by Joyce Simard for people with advanced dementia. It aims to meet core human needs through the therapeutic scheduling of personalised sensory engagement practices in the compassionate presence of an appropriately skilled other - within a healing harmonious setting.  Since 2010 Lorna has been involved in promoting Namaste Care by developing and delivering in-person and online training in its practice for care-home, hospice, hospital, and community staff across the UK. Lorna has had a longstanding interest in the care of people with advanced dementia. She completed her PhD in 2016 - an institutional ethnography to map the institutional (dis)organisation of palliative care for people with advanced dementia living and dying in care homes.

Lesley Wylie, Care Home Manager

Lesley is an experienced nurse and social care leader with over 30 years of practice across health and social care services. For the past 16 years, she has worked with Erskine, Scotland’s veterans’ charity, where she is committed to delivering high-quality, person-centred care for veterans and their families.

In 2018, Lesley was awarded the Queen’s Nurse title in recognition of her leadership, professional excellence, and commitment to improving care. Throughout her career, she has been particularly passionate about supporting people living with dementia, promoting approaches that uphold dignity, connection, and quality of life throughout the progression of the condition and into the final stages of life.

This passion led to her strong interest in Namaste Care, an approach that focuses on meaningful engagement, comfort, and compassionate support for those with advanced dementia. She is dedicated to sharing the benefits of Namaste Care and advancing excellence in palliative and dementia care practice

Palliative care for people living with multimorbidity

Sarah Bowers, NHS Forth Valley

Sarah is a final year resident doctor in Palliative Medicine and General Internal Medicine at NHS Forth Valley. She recently completed her PhD, “Experiences of healthcare and support for people with multimorbidity approaching the end of life”. Her research combined a scoping review, population-level analysis of routinely collected health data and qualitative enquiry with bereaved caregivers to explore patterns of healthcare use and experiences of care towards the end of life for people with multimorbidity.

Sarah is now a SCREDS Clinical Lecturer at the University of St Andrews, where she continues her research to improve the availability, quality and experience of care for people with palliative and end-of-life care needs, particularly those living with non-malignant and multiple conditions.

Book your place

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