“At St Wilfrid’s Hospice we aim to deliver excellent care to local people with life limiting illness, tailoring our care to individual needs.

In order to deliver the best possible care, to provide relief from symptoms, and to support patients and their loved ones, we need to make decisions based on sound evidence from research. This evidence is combined with our years of experience and expertise caring for patients at the end of their lives.

The need for research in palliative and end of life care has never been greater yet research is underfunded compared with studies looking at prevention and cure.

There have been lots of barriers to involving patients close to the end of life in research. For example concerns about being unable to gain their consent, using up precious time, patients not seeing direct benefit themselves, or causing additional distress.

In fact there is now plenty of evidence to show patients are willing to take part in research, that they want this opportunity, and that they do benefit. 

Research evidence helps us answer every day clinical questions, like which pain killer might work best for a particular patient with a particular type of pain. It also helps us to better design and develop our services.

Research is vital to improve patient care and at St Wilfrid’s we are really excited to be furthering our research journey.

At St Wilfrid’s we want to be able to give our patients and their loved ones the opportunity to take part in research, and to contribute to improving care now and in the future.”