Hospice UK National Conference

Find the most updated programme here.

This remains the one of the major challenges facing the hospice and wider palliative and end of life care sector.

- We’ll be looking at new ways to diversify your workforce and recruitment, how to encourage people to consider a career in a hospice, and how you can retain and upskill existing staff.

- Partnerships with other local healthcare providers could be a source of new opportunities to share resources and skills. We’ll be looking at how to generate and maximise them.

According to Hospice UK research, nearly all hospices in the UK are predicting a budget deficit in 2023/24*. In total, our sector’s expenditure will surpass its income by an estimated £186 million this year. This means that now more than ever, it’s important that every pound, and hour of staff time, must be efficiently used.

- We’ll be exploring how hospices can start bringing in more revenue through fundraising and commercial opportunities

- We’ll be discussion how they to maximise your current resources and use them effectively and efficiently.
 

Robust rata and evidence is crucial to hospice operations: using it effectively should underpin all aspects of developing and delivering services. 

- We’ll be looking at how we can improve our data collection, analysis and usage – including population, service use and impact – and how this can help you make better decisions.

Technological innovations offer the opportunity to transform the way in which hospices work – and the quality of care they offer. Our question is: if we embrace the technology, what new possibilities could it offer?

- We’ll be studying new solutions and examples of advanced digital technology in action, including maximising resources for efficiency, using virtual reality for pain control, artificial intelligence for symptom prediction and managing virtual wards.

We know how important it is, as a sector, to do more to increase the diversity of our workforce – and reach out to minoritised people in our communities. 

- We’ll be exploring how to be more inclusive in practice, to ensure that everyone is able to access hospice care.

- We will also be sharing opportunities to drive culture change, and making sure that patients, families, staff and volunteers feel truly welcomed and heard.