I am a palliative care physician, researcher and educator. Although UK palliative care works well for people from majority groups, I know from published research and from my own experience that many patients do not have adequate access to palliative care, including some of the most vulnerable and marginalised members of society, who have significant unmet palliative care needs.

In order to ensure everyone who needs palliative care receives it, our approaches must change to meet people where they are: we must adapt to new models of care. In my Fellowship I am focusing on palliative care for two specific marginalised patient groups Ð people experiencing homelessness and people in prison Ð acknowledging that many of these patients have experienced significant trauma which affects their engagement with healthcare.

I will travel to Canada and the USA to learn from models of palliative care which succeed in meeting the needs of these structurally vulnerable groups, and do so through care models which are trauma informed. My ultimate goal through this research is for everyone in the UK to have access to the palliative and end-of-life care they need, regardless of social circumstances.