NEW: Palliative and End-of-Life Care Safety Initiative of the Year

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NEW: Palliative and End-of-Life Care Safety Initiative of the Year
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How to apply

  1. Register an account.
  2. Start your entry (save it in-progress).
  3. Submit your entry to be in the running.

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High-quality palliative and end-of-life care is fundamental to ensuring that people with life-limiting conditions receive compassionate, dignified, and safe support. Delivering safe care in this context involves complex clinical decision-making, sensitive communication, personalised planning, and close coordination across multiple services. As demand continues to grow and patient needs become increasingly complex, organisations across the NHS and wider care system are seeking to reduce avoidable harm, improve symptom management, enhance shared decision-making, and ensure individuals are able to die in the place and manner of their choosing.

This award recognises initiatives that have significantly improved the safety, reliability, and experience of palliative and end-of-life care. Judges will be looking for evidence-based, compassionate approaches that strengthen safety practices, embed personalised care planning, improve transitions between services, and empower patients and their families during some of the most vulnerable moments of their care journeys.

Eligibility

Entries are welcomed from across the NHS, hospices, primary and community care, and cross-sector collaborations focused on improving safety whilst delivering compassionate palliative or end-of-life care.

Ambition

  • Describe the context of palliative or end-of-life care within the organisation or system, including relevant challenges
  • Identify the need for improvement and the steps taken to design and implement the initiative.
  • Outline the goals set, the safeguards introduced, and the measures selected to assess progress and success.
  • Explain how the initiative was informed by best practice, national guidance, research evidence, or learning from patient safety incidents.

Outcome

  • Provide clear evidence of improved safety or quality of care that is directly attributable to the initiative.
  • Include quantitative evidence where possible (e.g., reduction in avoidable hospital admissions, improved symptom control, improved identification of patients approaching end of life) and supplement with qualitative measures such as patient, carer, and staff feedback.
  • Demonstrate how the initiative has led to consistently safer, more compassionate, and more person-centred palliative and end-of-life care.
  • Highlight any additional benefits, such as strengthened advance care planning, greater continuity of care, improved experience for families, or reduced distress during care transitions.

Spread

  • Provide evidence of how learning has been shared within the organisation and how the initiative has been embedded, replicated, or scaled across different settings.
  • Highlight any collaboration with system partners required to extend the impact or adapt the approach for different populations or care environments.
  • Demonstrate how any learning has helped improve wider end-of-life patient-safety practice

Value

  • Demonstrate how the initiative has improved value for patients, families, and staff – this could include enhanced experience, greater clarity in decision-making, and improved ability of staff to deliver safe and dignified care.
  • Where possible, outline resource or financial efficiencies, such as reduced unnecessary interventions, improved use of neighbourhood or community services, or reduced hospital-based care at the end of life.
  • Include testimonials from patients, carers, or staff to illustrate the impact and value of the initiative.

Involvement

  • Show how patients and families were involved in decisions about their care and how their views shaped the design of the initiative.
  • Provide evidence of a multidisciplinary approach, involving clinicians, social care professionals, patient safety partners, and/or wider third sector organisations.
  • Demonstrate how the initiative has fostered a culture of openness and shared learning, where patients, families and staff feel empowered to contribute to ongoing safety improvements.

NEW: Palliative and End-of-Life Care Safety Initiative of the Year

Start your entry

To find out more

Partnership opportunities:  Sponsorship Sales Team
Awards entry enquiries: Delegate Sales Team
Judging and event management: Awards Support