Wolfson Palliative Care Research Centre

The Wolfson Palliative Care Research Centre brings together researchers, health and social care professionals from a range of disciplines, patients, families and members of the public to find and help deliver the best palliative care services and treatments.

We conduct palliative care research, and provide education and information relevant to the needs of people living with and dying from serious illness, their families and communities. We aim to improve quality of life and reduce inequalities in care, especially those driven by socio-economic status and diagnosis.

We are committed to involving patients, carers, families and local communities as active partners in shaping our research. We want to make sure that people with many different perspectives and experiences have the chance to influence what we do and how we do it. This helps us to focus on what really matters to people.

We aim to acknowledge all who have contributed to our work; University of Hull is signed up to the Science Council’s Technical Commitment initiative – and we implement this approach.

What is palliative care?

Palliative care is the active total care of people with progressive, life-limiting illness to help them to live well through control of symptoms, support for psychological, social and spiritual concerns and care for their families and friends.

Palliative care can be applied as an extra layer of care alongside treatment of medical conditions which aims to cure or prolong life. It should be available according to need, and not restricted by diagnosis or prognosis.

Discover more about our Centre and our research

The work of the Centre is making a real difference to patient’s lives – and their families too. Discover more about our inspirational people and our impactful research through our pages below.

If you are inspired by our research and you would like to collaborate, visit or study with us, please do get in touch: WolfsonPallCare@hyms.ac.uk

Latest Wolfson news

New appointment: Jonathan Koffman, Professor in Palliative Care
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Jonathan Koffman as Professor in Palliative Care, joining us from March 2022. Jonathan will join us from the Cicely Saunders Institute at King’s College London where he has worked since 1997, most recently as Reader in Palliative Care. We look forward to welcoming Jonathan next year.

Promotion news
We are delighted to announce that both Dr Joseph Clark and Dr Ann Hutchinson are promoted to Band 8.

Professors recognised as world leaders in palliative care
Professors Miriam Johnson and Fliss Murtagh have been listed in the top 0.1% of scholars researching and publishing about palliative care in expertscape. Through its PubMed-based algorithms, expertscape rates scholars in palliative care over the last decade, with the top 0.1% rated as ‘world-expert’ and at the leading edge of investigation into their topic.

Promotion news
Congratulations to Dr Mark Pearson, who has been promoted to Reader in the second round of academic promotions at the University of Hull this year.

ppi-button — Patient and public involvement and engagement

undergraduate-cropped — Undergraduate study

postgraduate-students-cropped — Postgraduate study

collaborations-cropped — Partners and collaborators

Allam_Medical_Building — Be a visiting researcher

International Investment Initiative (I3) Fund

This UKRI fund aims to support the scaling up of existing strategically significant, internationally collaborative research relationships between English universities and research organisations outside the UK. We are delighted to be one of only 8 grant recipients in England for this initiative in partnership with the IMPACCT research group at the University of Technology Sydney (Australia) for our bid, "Building Critical Mass for Palliative Care Research through Collaborative Support, Exchange and Challenge".

The award funds a programme of joint "Creating Connections" conferences, workshops and masterclasses, and an academic exchange programme (Professions, senior lecturers, post-doctoral researchers, PhD students) to foster collaborative links and joint working.

Bringing Breathlessness into View exhibition

In collaboration with artists and local people living with breathlessness, we have created the Bringing Breathlessness into View exhibition, which aims to raise awareness of what it is like to live with breathlessness, and enable people to access support to manage breathlessness well.

We hope visitors will find the exhibition thought provoking and develop a greater understanding of the difficulties it causes.

Visit our blog to explore the exhibition and find resources to help manage breathlessness. You can also subscribe to our blog to receive notifications of new posts by email.

Find out more Visit our blog

Piece from the Bringing Breathlessness into View exhibition

Our aims

We aim to generate new knowledge in these areas:

Addressing under-researched symptoms and problems
Reducing inequalities in palliative care outcomes, improving access and optimising delivery
Informing and improving palliative care services and outcomes in low and middle-income countries
Measuring individual and service-level palliative care outcomes
Researching the social and psychological aspects of palliative care
Advancing education and research on implementation of palliative care evidence into policy and practice

Thank you to our funders

Our research is currently or has been previously funded by the following organisations. We are very grateful for their support so we can make a real difference to palliative care.