Newsletter
Issue 12, Spring 2015
I am delighted to be able to write this introduction to the Spring Newsletter. The vast majority of
those who work in hospice and palliative care have been influenced directly or indirectly by the
work and writings of Dame Cicely Saunders. I was fortunate to be able to meet Dame Cicely
and to hear her lecture a number of times. Our team keeps her photo in our conference room
together with the photos of patients and families we have treated over the years as a reminder
of why we come to work every day. We also keep a framed copy of 15 recommendations she
wrote on a scrap paper under the title ‘St Christopher’s philosophy for export to North America’.
Recommendations number 1, 6, 11 and 15 are: ‘nothing matters more than the bowels’. Dame
Cicely continues to guide our Department and me personally in all matters of clinical care,
education, research and administration.
In my years as the Chair of the International Scientific Expert Panel (ISEP) I have always felt that
the leaders and scientists of Cicely Saunders International share my sense of duty to do as
much as we can to improve the body of knowledge on the science and art of palliative care.
The scientific team underwent a very successful review by the ISEP last November ( the best
ever in my years leading the ISEP) and has recently undergone a very successful review by
the Research Excellence Framework ( a particularly challenging process since palliative care is
reviewed in context with other well established and funded areas of health research).
I am proud to be able to interact with this talented team of community leaders, and I am very
happy with the results obtained during the last year. I am also convinced that Dame Cicely
would be happy.
Eduardo Bruera, MD
Professor and Chair
Department of Palliative Care & Rehabilitation Medicine
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Continuing support from The Atlantic
Philanthropies
We are thrilled to announce a philanthropic donation of just over £2.8 million from The
Atlantic Philanthropies. This award will enable us to drive transformative change in
palliative care not only in the UK but also in the US, Southern and Northern Ireland and
Vietnam. The Cicely Saunders Institute is lead partner in an international consortium,
with Trinity College Dublin, All Ireland Institute of Hospice and Palliative Care and Mount
Sinai School of Medicine, a unique collaboration which will influence practice and policy
across these countries.
The award will improve how chronic conditions
are managed for millions of people by supporting
the development of palliative care tools, resources
and training programmes to identify problems
earlier, assess patients’ and families’ needs,
and respond with more appropriate and cost
effective models of care. It will improve global
access to palliative care and embed services into
international policy and practice. The introduction
of a global Fellowship Programme will provide
vital human capital and help to develop much
needed leaders of tomorrow.
You may of course remember that Atlantic were
key funders in setting up the Institute, giving us
£4million. For this they specified their donation
should be matched by other funders and again
they have asked us to do this. We successfully
secured the matched funding last time and are
confident we can do it again. However, we need
help from our friends and supporters. There
has never been a better time to give to Cicely
Saunders International as your donations will
allow us to unlock £2,862,888 of pre-secured
funding. All matching gifts to us will have a
substantial multiplier effect, benefitting patients
across the globe.
You can donate online or via the form at
the end of this newsletter (online donations:
(www.cicelysaundersinternational.org).
Alternatively you can contact Brenda Ferns at
Cicely Saunders International (brenda.ferns@
cicelysaundersinternational.org or 020 7848
5580).
The Atlantic Philanthropies has made a huge
contribution to the development of palliative care
and palliative care research. What has been of
particular value has been the support for the
international collaborations, bringing together
a range of skills and experience, and allowing
comparisons to be made. The new grants will
help take this a long way forward, and should
form the basis for strong and long term links
as well as supporting research, dissemination,
training and service development. As someone
who works in a small country it is of particular
value to be able to work closely with partners
abroad.
Prof Charles Normand, Trinity College Dublin
Atlantic Philanthropies’ long standing investment
in palliative care has led to real and positive
change in care for the seriously ill across the
globe. The current grant will enable the Center
to Advance Palliative Care to scale access to
palliative care to all people in need and to their
families at whatever stage of illness and no
matter how long they may have to live. We will
do this by strengthening the skills of all clinicians
caring for patients with serious illness, and by
supporting implementation of proven palliative
care models in all settings- home, nursing
homes, office practices, as well as hospitals.
Dr Diane E. Meier, Director, Center to Advance
Palliative Care, New York
The Atlantic Philanthropies have demonstrated
a long term commitment to the care of some of
the most vulnerable populations within society,
and to improving that care through encouraging
collaboration, partnerships and research. The
International Fellowship programme will provide
us with the exciting opportunity to work together
with the next generation of Palliative Care leaders
and researchers from across the world to the
huge potential benefit of untold patients and
families. Prof Max Watson, Medical Director,
Northern Ireland Hospice
Spiritual care in palliative care conference
On 24 November 2014, 100 delegates from
10 countries attended the conference Spiritual
care in palliative care: recent European
research and future developments, part
of the series of events commemorating
the 10-year anniversary of Dame Cicely’s
death. Planned by Dr Lucy Selman,
Cicely Saunders International Faculty
Scholar at King’s College London, the day
covered a wide range of themes, from the
perspective of a family caregiver whose
son received palliative care to a host of
research presentations by researchers and
practitioners from across Europe. Delegates
were from diverse backgrounds and included
carers and chaplains, as well as clinicians
and researchers. Speakers from the UK,
Netherlands, Spain and Belgium covered
topics including: establishing research
priorities in spiritual care,
cultural and spiritual
needs, spiritual care in
nursing home settings,
the development and
evaluation of training
programmes, assessment
and history taking, and
international collaboration
in research.
Dr Lucy Selman
There were many opportunities for discussion,
networking and viewing of delegates’ research
posters on spiritual care from America, South
Africa, Uganda, Denmark, India, the UK and
the Czech Republic. The poster prize was
awarded to the Rev Hamilton Inbadas, for
his research on ‘Understanding spirituality
at the end of life in India: A historical-cultural
approach’. As well as Dame Cicely’s brother,
Mr Christopher Saunders, speaking on the
relevance of spiritual care to her vision, a video
extract of a 1994 interview with Dame Cicely
was shown, which gave insight into her life
work and commitment to spiritual care as a
core component of palliative care.
Mr Christopher Saunders
The conference followed
on from the 2012 Sir
Halley Stewart Trust
Symposium on Spiritual
Care in Palliative Care,
when a group of invited
experts, clinicians,
researchers, patients
and carers gathered to
establish a research agenda following the
EAPC survey led by Lucy Selman and Teresa
Young.
Research exploring the role of spirituality in
serious illness and the provision of spiritual
care in palliative care is essential to ensure
that evidence-based spiritual care remains
integral to palliative care. This conference was
an opportunity to be challenged in thinking
and practice and an important contribution
towards the ongoing development of spiritual
care research internationally.
Videos of the presentations delivered at the
2012 symposium are available through the
Cicely Saunders Institute YouTube channel
(www.youtube.com/user/csikcl); presentations
from this year’s conference will be available
shortly.
Links
• EAPC Task Force on Spiritual Care in
Palliative Care
http://www.eapcnet.eu/Themes/
Clinicalcare/Spiritualcareinpalliativecare.
aspx
• Dame Cicely Saunders: Celebrating the
continuation of her life’s work – a series of
events in 2015 at Cicely Saunders Institute.
www.cicelysaundersinternational.org/news
Trustees of Cicely Saunders International
During the latter part of 2014 and the start of 2015 some of our trustees have
resigned and others have been appointed.
• Sir David Walker, a founding trustee of Cicely Saunders International, stood down as a
trustee but has kindly agreed to be our Patron. A good friend of Dame Cicely’s, over his
many years with CS International he has been a constant source of advice and played a
pivotal role in the creation of the Cicely Saunders Institute.
• Christopher Saunders, brother of Dame Cicely, has also retired as a trustee. We will
miss his personal insight into Dame Cicely’s career and life.
• We say farewell too to Lord Wilson of Dinton who first met Dame Cicely in 1991 and
played a key role in establishing the National Council for Palliative Care.
We are, however, delighted to announce that we have appointed two new trustees.
Kate Kirk, niece of Dame Cicely. Kate brings with her many years
of experience working across a broad spectrum of communications
activities, including writing, editing, human resources and public
relations. Greatly influenced by her aunt, she took part in the St
Christopher’s Hospice Summer Volunteer programme in her youth
and continues that interest with us and as a volunteer for, and
a trustee of, the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity which is currently
transferring to independence and raising funds to build a new
hospice in Cambridge.
Dame Colette Bowe is currently chairman of the Banking
Standards Review Council (BSRC) and also of the Associated
Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM), a board member of
the UK Statistics Authority, a non executive board member at the
Department for Transport, and a Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation
and of the Tablet Trust. She was, until March 2014, chairman of
Ofcom and also of Electra Private Equity plc. An economist by
profession, she is also a Visiting Fellow at Nuffield College Oxford.
News
• Cicely Saunders International is part of a
coalition of end of life care charities which
has drawn up a briefing document ahead
of the election in May to highlight solutions
to the looming crisis facing both terminally
ill people and the NHS. The document
outlines the challenges, such as around 50
per cent of people in the UK die in hospital
whereas fewer than five per cent say that is
where they choose to die. You can view the
briefing document on our website (www.
cicelysaundersinternational.org/news) and
see the coalition’s dedicated website (http://
endoflifecampaign.org/#).
Dame Cicely Saunders
Celebrating the continuation of her life’s work
2015
• This year is the 10th anniversary of
Dame Cicely Saunders’ death and in
commemoration and to celebrate the
continuation of her life’s work, Cicely
Saunders International is supporting
a programme of events commencing
November 2014 and running throughout
2015. If you would like to know more,
please either visit our website (www.
cicelysaundersinternational.org) or contact us
on 020 7848 5580.
on the various programmes supported by
Cicely Saunders International an opportunity
to present their work to world-leading experts
in palliative care and to receive valuable
feedback. Professor Higginson reported that
the day was highly successful: “The ISEP
Board gave hugely valuable suggestions and
advice for our current and future research
and education, in particular how we can use
this to improve care. Their generosity and
insight were an inspiration to the whole team
and we thank them immensely.”
• Congratulations are due to Professor
Higginson and her team at The Cicely
Saunders Institute. In the recent UK
Research Excellence Framework (REF)
exercise, in which the Cicely Saunders
Institute of Palliative Care and Rehabilitation
was aligned with the Florence Nightingale
Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, the results
have revealed first-rate performance. Under
the REF, a process of expert review of the
quality and impact of research in UK higher
education institutions, this submission
achieved a 4* or 3* rating in 84% of its
research outputs, while 84% of the impact
case studies submitted as part of the
assessment were rated at 4*. In total, 43
individual researchers’ work was taken into
account for this submission, a quarter of
which were early career researchers. Overall,
90% of this return from the REF was rated 4*
or 3*.
• And finally, Cicely Saunders
International has a new website (www.
cicelysaundersinternational.org) – please
do visit.
• The biennial meeting of our International
Scientific Expert Panel (ISEP) took place in
November. This gave researchers working
Please contact Brenda Ferns, Administrator, on 020 7848 5580 or
[email protected] if you do not wish to receive future copies of this
newsletter. The newsletter is also available on our website – www.cicelysaundersinternational.org
Supporting Cicely Saunders International
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would like to thank our past and current donors and would also like to encourage new donors to
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order, please complete this form and return it to: Brenda Ferns, Cicely Saunders International,
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[email protected]
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