Supportive, Palliative and End of Life Research Programme (SPEL)

Palliative Care1Our aim is to work collaboratively with academics, clinicians, patients and public in health and social care to build research and scholarly educational interventions that meet service user and service provider needs. The emergent palliative care research community of academics, clinicians and services users with complex palliative health and social care needs provide an interdisciplinary, multi-agency research partnership that aims to increase patient and staff benefit in palliative care research.

Programme lead

c baileyDr Cara Bailey

Senior Lecturer
Supportive, Palliative and End of Life Research Programme Lead
Lead for Postgraduate Studies and CPD in Nursing

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Our research programme

The aims of the Supportive, Palliative and End of Life Research Programme in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Birmingham are to:

  • Undertake high quality research in palliative and end-of-life care which has patient benefit and service impact;
  • Publish research and scholarly outputs in high impact academic journals;
  • Work collaboratively with practice partners and service users to ensure our research and scholarship is relevant, timely and has impact;
  • Build capacity in palliative and end of life care research.

The research programme was formally established in September 2017 and since then it has grown to reflect the diverging nature of palliative and end of life care, with increasing grant capture, associated PhD students, high quality publications and local impact in our clinical areas. Membership reflects and represents the different specialities and fields that contribute to end of life care. Many of our members contribute to the development of palliative care services locally, nationally and internationally by serving on working groups, expert committees and panels. Our overall aim is to have a positive impact on the provision of end of life services through high quality research and collaboration.

Supportive, Palliative and End of Life Research members

SPEL Members:

PhD Students:

  • Peniel Garuba - Frailty and end of life care 
  • Adrian Millward - Spirituality and end of life care
  • Piyatida Theppradit (Best)  - Developing a paediatric palliative care education programme for Thai nurses

Global Partners:

Current projects

  • Bailey C (PI) Guo P, MacArtney PPCE C19 Preferred place of care during covid 19 and impact of decision making amongst patients. (Marie Curie) 2021-22
  • Bailey C (PI) Guo P, MacArtney ICES C19 Informal carers experiences of covid-19 (Marie Curie) 2021-22
  • Guo P (PI) and Bailey C et al Improving person-centred nurse-led care for primary care patients with progressive multimorbid illness (Burdett Trust for Nursing) 2020-2021
  • Riley R, Hewison A (CI) et al   Identifying the impact of a colleague’s suicide on NHS staff, and their support needs, to inform postvention guidance (NIHR RfPB) 2020-2022
  • Al-Janabi H. and  Efstathiou  N Techniques to include carers' quality of life in economic evaluation (Funded by NIHR)
  • Downar J and Efstathiou N ICU BEREAVE feasibility study (Funded by Ottawa Hospital charitable fund)
  • Bailey C (PI), Burt R, Arif A, MaCartney J, Young A. REPliCA: Reasons for Emergency Palliative Care Admissions 2018-2021

Publications

Mitchell, P.M., Coast, J., Myring, G., Ricciardi, F., Vickerstaff, V., Jones, L., Zafar, S., Cudmore, S., Jordan, J.,  McKibben, L.,  Graham-Wisener, L., Finucane, A., Hewison, A. et al  Haraldsdottir, E., Brazil, K. and Kernohan, W.G. (In press) Exploring the costs, consequences and efficiency of three types of Palliative Care Day Services in the UK: a pragmatic before-and-after descriptive cohort study.  BMC Palliative Care 19 (119) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-020-00624-y

Rima A Abdul-Khalek,R.A., Guo, P. et al (2020) The economic burden of cancer care for Syrian refugees: a population-based modelling study.  Lancet Oncology 21, 637–44

Hewison A, Zafir S and Efstathiou N (2020)  Bereavement Support in the UK- a rapid evidence assessment.  Bereavement Care 39 (2), 69-78.

Batstone, E., Bailey C. and Hallett, N. (2020) Spiritual care provision to end‐of‐life patients: A systematic literature review. Journal of Clinical Nursing.  https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15411

Canaway, A., Al-Janabi, H., Kinghorn, P. Bailey C. and Coast J. (2019) Close-Person Spill-Overs in End-of-Life Care: Using Hierarchical Mapping to Identify Whose Outcomes to Include in Economic Evaluations. PharmacoEconomics 37, 573-583.