Medical specialties
Palliative Medicine Diploma
Register interest
An evidence-led diploma in palliative medicine: how to recognise who needs palliative care, control pain and other symptoms, plan ahead with patients and families, and care well for people in the last days of life, anchored on National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) and European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) guidance.
Twenty-five weekly sessions across five modules take you from communication, prognosis and advance care planning (including ReSPECT, the Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment), through symptom control, emergencies and illnesses other than cancer, to the last days of life and palliative care for children, older people and low-resource settings, taught live by practising specialists you can question.
- Course director
- To be announced
- Format
- 25 live weekly sessions on Zoom, in 5 modules
- Fee
- £1,200 (scholarships available)
- Dates
- Confirmed when enrolment opens
Who it is for
Senior trainees, fellows and early-career consultants in palliative medicine, and oncologists, physicians, GPs and other specialists who care for people with advanced illness, worldwide.
The programme
25 one-hour sessions in 5 modules, each with its learning objectives. This is the draft programme: the course director reviews and refines it before enrolment opens, so session titles may change.
Module 1 · Sessions 1 to 5Foundations of palliative care
1. Who needs palliative care, and when
- Identify patients who would benefit from palliative care using the Supportive and Palliative Care Indicators Tool
- Explain the trial evidence that early palliative care improves quality of life
- Integrate palliative care alongside treatment aimed at the disease
- Describe how NICE NG142 organises end of life care services
2. Prognosis and living with uncertainty
- Estimate prognosis using clinical judgement and validated tools
- Explain the limits of prognostic tools to patients and families
- Communicate uncertainty honestly without removing hope
- Plan care that stays appropriate whether the patient lives longer or shorter than expected
3. Serious illness communication
- Break bad news using a structured approach
- Explore a patient's goals, values and priorities for care
- Respond to family requests to withhold information from the patient
- Adapt conversations to cultural and religious expectations
4. Advance care planning and treatment escalation
- Lead an advance care planning conversation in line with the European consensus definition
- Complete a treatment escalation plan such as ReSPECT with the patient
- Make and communicate do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DNACPR) decisions lawfully
- Explain the roles of advance decisions and lasting power of attorney
5. Ethics and law at the end of life
- Apply ethical principles to decisions to withhold or withdraw treatment
- Decide on clinically assisted nutrition and hydration with patients and families
- Explain the differences between palliative care, palliative sedation and assisted dying
- Describe the current legal position on assisted dying in the UK and in other countries
Module 2 · Sessions 6 to 10Pain and symptom control
6. Cancer pain and opioid prescribing
- Assess cancer pain by mechanism and impact
- Start and titrate strong opioids in line with NICE CG140
- Convert between opioids and routes of administration safely
- Choose opioids for patients with renal impairment
7. Difficult pain
- Manage neuropathic and bone pain in advanced disease
- Recognise and manage opioid toxicity
- Decide when to involve specialists for methadone, ketamine or nerve blocks
- Refer for palliative radiotherapy at the right time
8. Breathlessness and cough
- Assess breathlessness and its reversible causes
- Use non-drug measures such as hand-held fans and breathing techniques
- Weigh the 2025 UK trial evidence on morphine when treating chronic breathlessness
- Manage breathlessness and cough in the last days of life
9. Nausea, vomiting, bowel obstruction and constipation
- Choose antiemetics according to the likely cause of nausea
- Manage malignant bowel obstruction with surgical and medical options
- Prevent and treat opioid-induced constipation
- Decide when a nasogastric tube or venting gastrostomy will help
10. Delirium, agitation and psychological distress
- Recognise and assess delirium in advanced illness
- Treat reversible causes of delirium and use medicines only when needed
- Identify depression and anxiety in people with life-limiting illness
- Respond to existential and spiritual distress
Module 3 · Sessions 11 to 15Emergencies and illnesses other than cancer
11. Metastatic spinal cord compression and oncological emergencies
- Recognise metastatic spinal cord compression early and act in line with NICE NG234
- Manage hypercalcaemia of malignancy
- Recognise superior vena cava obstruction and arrange treatment
- Decide whether emergency treatment fits the patient's goals of care
12. Catastrophic bleeding, seizures and other end of life emergencies
- Anticipate and plan for catastrophic haemorrhage
- Manage seizures in the last weeks of life
- Prepare crisis medicines and a written plan for carers
- Support families and staff after a distressing death
13. Cachexia, fatigue, nutrition and hydration
- Assess cachexia and explain it to patients and families
- Manage fatigue in advanced illness
- Support decisions about eating, drinking and clinically assisted hydration
- Address family distress about reduced eating and drinking
14. Heart, lung and kidney failure
- Integrate palliative care into heart failure management
- Discuss and arrange deactivation of an implantable cardioverter defibrillator
- Manage symptoms in advanced lung disease
- Support patients who choose conservative kidney management
15. Neurological disease and dementia
- Plan care with people with motor neurone disease, including ventilation decisions
- Withdraw non-invasive ventilation safely at the patient's request
- Recognise palliative care needs in Parkinson's disease
- Support people with advanced dementia and their carers
Module 4 · Sessions 16 to 20The last days of life
16. Recognising dying and care in the last days
- Recognise when a patient may be in the last days of life
- Plan individualised care in line with NICE NG31
- Review and stop treatments that no longer help
- Explain to families what to expect as death approaches
17. Anticipatory medicines and syringe pumps
- Prescribe anticipatory medicines for common symptoms in the last days
- Set up and review a subcutaneous syringe pump
- Convert oral medicines to subcutaneous doses safely
- Organise access to medicines at home and out of hours
18. Palliative sedation and refractory symptoms
- Define refractory symptoms and when sedation should be considered
- Apply the revised European framework to proportionate palliative sedation
- Make decisions about hydration separately from decisions about sedation
- Distinguish palliative sedation from assisted dying when talking with families
19. Withdrawing life-sustaining treatment in intensive care and the emergency department
- Plan the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment with the critical care team
- Manage symptoms during and after compassionate extubation
- Include organ donation in end of life planning where appropriate
- Lead a family meeting about limiting treatment
20. After death: certification, bereavement and grief
- Verify and certify death correctly
- Explain the process after death to families
- Identify relatives at risk of complicated grief
- Organise appropriate bereavement support
Module 5 · Sessions 21 to 25Special populations and services
21. Children and young people
- Plan end of life care for children with life-limiting conditions using NICE NG61
- Use parallel planning when prognosis is uncertain
- Support parents and siblings
- Manage transition from children's to adult palliative services
22. Frailty, care homes and people with learning disabilities
- Recognise palliative care needs in frail older people
- Support care homes to deliver end of life care
- Make reasonable adjustments for people with learning disabilities
- Avoid unnecessary hospital admissions at the end of life
23. Spiritual, cultural and religious care
- Take a spiritual history
- Respect religious practices around dying and after death
- Work with chaplains and faith leaders as part of the team
- Negotiate a plan when cultural expectations conflict with clinical recommendations
24. Global palliative care and access to opioids
- Describe global inequity in access to palliative care and opioids
- Adapt palliative care to low-resource settings
- Advocate for access to essential medicines
- Plan palliative care in humanitarian emergencies
25. Running a palliative care service, with a complex case panel
- Apply the course to complex cases in a panel discussion
- Design a palliative care service that follows NICE NG142
- Measure the quality of end of life care through audit
- Protect your own and your team's wellbeing
What the diploma includes
- 25 live sessions on Zoom, one evening a week, with recordings for the weeks you miss.
- Practising specialists teaching live, so you can put your questions to them.
- Weekly MCQs and a final written assessment.
- A digital certificate carrying your final classification.
Lead or teach the Palliative Medicine Diploma
We are looking for a course director and faculty from the specialty. Sessions are one hour in the UK evening, live on Zoom, and paid.