1. Palliative and end of life care in rural, coastal and low-income communities (co-led by Prof Richard Harding, King’s College London with Dr Lorraine Hansford, University of Exeter): Coastal populations have some of the worst health outcomes in England, and limited palliative care research activity. This partnership will deliver a capacity-building programme, provide mentorship, support co-creation of public involvement infrastructures, and consult with local stakeholders to identify research questions based on local need.
2. Integration between primary and palliative care (co-led by Prof Catherine Evans, King’s College London with Dr Sarah Mitchell, University of Sheffield): Primary care provide the majority of palliative and end-of-life care in the community. Yet, cross-boundary primary and palliative care research is rare. This partnership will lead and develop new research processes into how primary and palliative care services can work together to address inequalities in palliative care. The partnership will build infrastructure for public involvement, run workshops to generate new insights into the partnership priority areas (infrastructure and involvement, integration, inequalities), generate research proposals to address these areas, and develop mechanisms for knowledge exchange with local, regional and national policymakers.
3. Functional loss and rehabilitation towards the end of life (co-led by Dr Matthew Maddocks, King’s College London, ARC South London’s palliative and end of care deputy theme lead with Prof Rowan Harwood, University of Nottingham): High quality research is required to ensure effective and equitable rehabilitation services that address difficulties in day-to-day activities towards the end of life. This partnership will work with stakeholders to build research capacity and capability, identify top-priority research questions, and co-design research studies to answer these questions.
In all cases, the ambition of each palliative care partnership is to forge new collaborations including clinical, academic and lived-experience experts, who will develop and submit competitive research proposals to the NIHR.