New Scottish Government Palliative Care Strategy published

Scottish Government has published a new palliative cares strategy - Palliative Care Matters for All.

A Delivery Plan has been published alongside the strategy.  Click on the links below to view:

• Scottish Government news article announcing the new strategy
• The full strategy - Palliative Care Matters for All.
• Initial delivery plan (2025-28)
• Consultation Report

Amendments Proposed to Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill

Lists of amendments which have been proposed by MSPs or Scottish Government are being published roughly weekly on the Scottish Parliament website - scroll down to Stage 2: changes to the Bill. 

Scottish Parliament proposals recognising Unpaid Carers 

Proposals to further expand and improve the benefits available to unpaid carers in Scotland have been laid before the Scottish Parliament.   Subject to Parliamentary approval, from March next year carers may be eligible to receive Carer Support, a new benefit combining three components: carer support payment; Scottish carer supplement; and carer additional person payment.  Other changes are also proposed - read more here.

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RCP position statement on palliative and end-of-life care

The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has published a new policy position on end-of-life and palliative care. The RCP statement argues for a cultural shift – both within healthcare and wider society – towards more open conversations, earlier planning and better integrated care for people with progressive life-limiting conditions.   Find out more here.

SPICT international programme moves to St Andrews University. 

SPICT (Supportive & Palliative Care Indicators Tool) is designed to help identify people with life-shortening conditions who could benefit from palliative care and future care planning.  The SPICT international programme at St Andrews University website has been launched. You’ll find all the familiar content at the same URL: https://www.spict.org.uk/

The Spectrum of Palliative Care poster (2025) is also available to download from the SPICT website. It has been updated by Rachel Green and colleagues to reflect the new Scottish Palliative Care Strategy.

HIS Aging and Frailty Standards self-assessment tool

A new self-assessment tool has been published to support implementation of the HIS Aging and Frailty Standards. The tool includes Standard 8 “Living and Dying Well”.  Find out more here.

Sharing Current Scottish Practice

The Poster Exhibition at the SPPC Annual Conference 2024 showcased best practice and new initiatives to improve experiences of living with serious illness, dying and bereavement in Scotland and further afield.

All of the posters are available to view on the SPPC website, and each month we’ll highlight a few on our blog. This month we highlight these four posters... click on the links to view the posters:

• Shared leadership in hospice care: Insights from St Columba’s Hospice Care
• ‘Sharing is Caring’ Redesigning CNS Caseload Management Mode
• Staff Experiences of Delivering end of life care in acute hospital settings: A Qualitative Framework Study
• Staff perspectives regarding delirium care in two hospice inpatient units: Findings from a questionnaire

The SPPC blog is a space to share practice currently underway in Scotland. If you have practice you’d like to share, please get in touch.

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Call for Posters - SPPC Annual Conference

Are you involved in an interesting project or in an area of work that you would like to share with others working in palliative care in Scotland? Why not present your work in the poster exhibition at the SPPC Annual Conference? By presenting a poster you can showcase your work throughout the conference to a large and diverse audience. In addition to the exhibition sessions during breaks, a selection of poster authors will be invited to give a short oral presentation to the conference plenary. Find out more here: Call for Posters - Annual Conference 2025

Assisted dying in practice: International experiences and implications for health and social care

A new report exploring 15 jurisdictions across the world looks in detail at what the UK can learn from other countries as the UK and Scottish Parliaments debate bills to legalise assisted dying.  Read the report in full here.

Report: The potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within Public Health and healthcare systems

Scotland’s AI strategy is set for renewal in 2026 and the Glasgow Centre for Population Health has published a report: The potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within Public Health and healthcare systems.  

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Farewell Pauline!

We are sorry to announce that long-time SPPC staff member Pauline Ellison has left SPPC.  Due to reductions in income SPPC needed to reduce staff numbers, leading to Pauline taking voluntary redundancy.

Pauline joined SPPC in January 2003. For 22 years she has been the bedrock upon which so much of SPPC’s work and achievements have stood. Whether managing the production of SPPC publications, organising the endless calendar of constituency group and cross party group meetings, running posters and exhibitions at conference and so much more, Pauline has brought rigorous organisation, meticulous attention to detail and kindness to all her work. As a colleague she has been a calm and supportive presence, and we will all really miss her.

Conference Programme Announced - Early Bird Rate ends 30 September

The programme for this year’s SPPC Annual Conference, has been announced.   The conference will take place in Edinburgh on 12 November 2025 and explore how different elements of the system can work together more effectively to improve people’s experiences of living with serious illness, dying and bereavement.

View the programme and book your tickets here: From System Holes to Whole System .

SPPC’s Response to the Public Health Scotland Strategy Consultation

SPPC has responded to Public Health Scotland’s consultation on its draft strategy for 2025-2035. Find out more here.

To Absent Friends 2025: New Resources

We have launched several new resources to support people participate in To Absent Friends, a people’s festival of storytelling and remembrance that takes place across Scotland 1-7 November.

• Creative Workshops for Remembrance - four templates for group activities.
• To Absent Friends Suppers - A Guide
• To Absent Friends: Practical Ideas for Events

We also have a range of other ideas and resources on our website, including:

• To Absent Friends: Guide to Holding an Event 
• Guide to making a Tribute Wall
• Essence of a Memory photo exhibition 

If you have an idea you’d like to discuss, please get in touch: samara@palliativecarescotland.org.uk 

Follow us on social media

For updates on SPPC and Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief work, follow us on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

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No Barriers Here Facilitator Training

No Barriers Here’ Facilitator Training shares arts-based methods and less verbal approaches to open up meaningful conversations. It is designed to help you support more people to be included, heard and supported when planning for their future care.  No Barriers Here Facilitator Training is coming to Scotland for the first time this November, and will take place on Monday 24 November 2025, Great Michael House, 14 Links Place, Edinburgh, EH6 7EZ.  Find out more and book a place here: https://www.nobarriershere.org/facilitator-training/training-events/.

Care Inspectorate Survey of Stakeholders

A survey is being undertaken of stakeholders who engage with the Care Inspectorate in Scotland.  Responses should help shape future improvements in care regulation, communication, and collaboration.  Undertake the survey here:  https://www.research.net/r/CareInspectorateSurvey

Extension of funding for SAS Palliative and End of Life Care team

The Scottish Government has announced it will providing funding to enable the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) Palliative and End of Life Care team to continue its vital work this year.  More information is here: Palliative care partnership extended with new funding

Launch of Plenna Website

Plenna is an association based and registered in Geneva that seeks to inform and help equip individuals to accept, consider and proactively plan for dying and death, whether for themselves or their loved ones and whatever their situation or age.  Their new website can be viewed here: https://www.plenna.org/

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Die Well, Live Fully: A Global Conversation - A webinar launching Plenna and its new website:

Wednesday 24 September 2025.  Find out more here: Die Well, Live Fully: A Global Conversation - Plenna

Palliative Care: Fit for the Future? 

Organised by Strathcarron Hospice. 1-2 October 2025. John McIntyre Conference Centre, Edinburgh, EH16 5AY

For more information contact Angela Harkins at angela.harkins4@nhs.scot. Find out more and book your place here.

End of Life Aid Skills for Everyone

End of Life Aid Skills for Everyone (EASE) is a free course for members of the public in Scotland who want to be better equipped to help friends or family who are caring, dying, or grieving.  Upcoming face-to-face EASE courses for Autumn 2025 include:

• North Berwick - October
• Aberdeen - October
• Edinburgh - October (including a condensed course over two days)
• Aberdeen - November
• Moray - November

To enquire about participating in one of the above courses, please email samara@palliativecarescotland.org.uk.

To join the waiting list for future courses, please sign up here.

To Absent Friends: A People’s Festival of Storytelling and Remembrance

Initiated by Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief. 1-7 November 2025 across Scotland. Find out more here: To Absent Friends

NES Bereavement Education Conference 2025 - Bereavement as a Kaleidoscope: An Inclusive Approach For All

Organised by NHS Education for Scotland. 11 November 2025, online.

Find out more and register here.

SPPC Annual Conference - From System Holes to Whole System

Organised by SPPC, 12 November 2025 at the John McIntyre Conference Centre, Edinburgh. 

Find out more and register here.

Masterclass in Palliative Care

Organised by OxCERPC. 14 November 2025, 09.00-16.30, Strathcarron Hospice. 

Find out more and register here.

The 6th International Symposium for the Arts in Palliative Care: Living, dying and the arts: Whose story, whose voice?

Organised by St Columba’s Hospice Care in collaboration with Queen Margaret University. Friday 14 November 2025, Hybrid event.

For more information and to register your place, please visit the symposium webpage here.

21st Kidney Supportive Care Meeting

18-19 November, Manchester. Register here.

No Barriers Here Facilitator Training – Scotland

Organised by Marie Curie UK, Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief and The Mary Stevens Hospice. Monday 24 November 2025, Great Michael House, 14 Links Place, Edinburgh, EH6 7EZ

To register or for further information, please visit: https://www.nobarriershere.org/facilitator-training/training-events/.

Opening Conversations On Assisted Dying, Death and Grief

Organised by University of the West of Scotland and Open University in Scotland. Tuesday 25 November 2025, 16:45 - 19:00, Dumfries Campus - University of the West of Scotland (UWS), Bankend Road Dumfries DG1 4FD. Register here.

GIRES Being Ready Training 

Organised by Gender Identity Research & Education Society (GIRES). 27 November 2025. Online or in-person, Colchester. 

More information is available here: weblink

The Bristol Centre for Grief Research and Engagement seminar series for 2025-26

• Equitable bereavement care for all ethnicities: Learning from a national NIHR funded study
  Dr Sabrina Bajwah, Clinical Reader, King’s College London;
  Dr Catriona Mayland, Senior Clinical Lecturer, University of Sheffield 
  20^th November 2025, 1-2pm. Register here
• The art of grief: Creativity, loss & the imagination
  Dr Lesel Dawson, Associate Professor in Literature & Culture, University of Bristol 
  15th January 2026, 1-2pm. Register here.
• Voicing loss: Expectations & experiences of coroners’ inquests
  Professor Jessica Jacobson, Professor of Criminal Justice, Birkbeck, University of London 
  3^rd March 2026, 1-2pm. Register here.
• Understanding & optimising the benefits of bereavement support
  Dr Emily Harrop, Marie Curie Senior Research Fellow, Cardiff University 
  6th May 2026, 1-2pm. Register here.

Healthcare Conferences UK: Professional Development Conferences & Masterclasses

Organised by Healthcare Conferences UK. For dates and times of individual sessions, see below. Readers of this newsletter can receive a 20% discount with the code hcuk20sppc.

• Controlled Drugs: Ensuring the Safer Management, Diversion & Abuse, Prescribing and Use Thursday 6^th October 2025, online. For more information or to register your place, visit here or email aman@hc-uk.org.uk.
• Patient Safety in Hospices Thursday 13^th November 2025, online. For further information and to book your place visit here or email aman@hc-uk.org.uk.
• Improving End of Life Care for people with Cardiovascular Disease & Heart Failure Wednesday 3^rd December 2025, online. For further information and to book your place visit here or email aman@hc-uk.org.uk.

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