Supporting people to make end-of-life decisions: A public health campaign

Join us for this free webinar where members of the public, clinicians, campaigns and end-of-life experts will consider what’s needed to build a successful public health campaign on end-of-life decisions.

Conversations about the need to transform end-of-life care are taking place in a wide range of forums, ranging from 10 Year Plan consultations, to policy-focused Commissions and Parliamentary discussions prompted by the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

People’s desire for a less hospital-based, intervention-heavy end for their lives is clear. But services struggle to respond with joined up, community based, agile models of care that can enable people to have the kind of death they want, closer to home.

Lord Darzi, in his review of NHS performance, stated what was needed was not just different services but a culture change that enabled a different conversation between people, and between people and services: “Society needs to restart the conversation about how to die well: with dignity, compassion, and preferences respected.”

So how do we support cultural change?

At Compassion in Dying, we think there’s an urgent need for a better conversation about how people can plan for the end of their lives and why doing so can help them and their families be confident that their preferences will be respected. A public health campaign would help to normalise the importance and impact of planning ahead on health and quality of life. Good public health campaigns don’t just ‘give information’, they are based on sound evidence of what factors get in the way of people acting in line with their priorities and tackle those factors head on.

This collaborative discussion will explore questions like who could benefit from a public campaign and what key messages should be considered? What audiences should be included and how can we work alongside them to understand what they want and need? What can we learn from previous national behaviour change campaigns? How can we work with lived experience leadership at the forefront, in partnership as a sector?

Chaired by Dr Charlotte Augst, this solutions-focused webinar will prompt a creative discussion, where attendees and speakers can learn from previous campaigns and each other's experiences, and consider how we might work together to support decision makers in Government, the NHS and the voluntary sector to coproduce such a campaign.

Panellists:

• Professor Allan Kellehear, medical and public health sociologist

• Miranda Ashitey, who is living with stage 4 breast cancer

• Sue Baker OBE, Director of Changing Minds Globally and Founding Director, Time to Change

• Tom Wood, Clinical Lead, Resuscitation Council UK

• Usha Grieve, Director of Services, Compassion in Dying

This webinar will be held on Zoom. Once registered, you will receive an email with joining instructions.