Hospice UK National Conference
The Hospice UK conference took place from 6-8 November 2023, at ACC Liverpool, and online.
Keep up to date with latest news here, and join in the conversation.
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Explore our 2023 Conference:
This year's theme: Thinking Differently
We’re excited to think differently about the big trends, challenges and opportunities in hospice and end of life care across all four nations of the UK.
Hundreds of hospice and end of life sector colleagues are joining us for a varied agenda packed with discussion, debate, presentations, research and learning.
See our latest news, and join in the conversation on Twitter, below.
Programme and themes
Over the course of three days, we’ll be building on the themes of our last two national conferences. We’ll be deep diving into the key challenges facing the sector, and exploring issues that you and your colleagues deal with every day:
- Recruiting and retaining our workforce
- Financial sustainability
- Data driven decision making
- Embracing digital ways of working
- Promoting diversity and inclusion
Read more about our key themes by expanding the pink boxes, below.
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Find the most updated programme here.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
“Stimulating and thought provoking about how to navigate future paths for hospices.”
“The vast group of fabulous people all in one place which led to the brilliant, productive networking and new connections being made.”
“An extremely relaxed and friendly conference. Everyone was very approachable: it created a really good environment to talk and engage with other attendees.”
~ 2022 Conference attendees
Conference aims
We know that Hospice and end of life care is at its best when we work together and learn from each other.
We work hard to connect hospice and end of life professionals through our networks, events and online resources. The National Conference underpins our mission of supporting our member hospices deliver world class end of life care.
Every year, delegates tell us they come away with new ideas, renewed energy and practical advice they can use each day in their work.
We aim for attendees to leave the conference feeling energised, inspired and able to think differently about the challenges they are facing.
Find out more
There are lots of ways you can be involved in our National Conference, from attending as a delegate, to sponsorship and exhibiting.