End of life in intensive care: Current challenges

Having Graduated for Oxford University, Dr Proffitt first undertook training in Haematology before finding her passion for Palliative medicine. As a Consultant at Bart's Health, she enjoyed the diversity of work between central London and Whitechapel. Amy subsequently took on the role of Deputy Medical director and St Christopher’s Hospice – where the Hospice movement started. Dr Proffitt is the Vice President of the Association for Palliative medicine. She is enthusiastic about bringing changes to the speciality and fulfils this through her roles with the Ambition Partnership and has been a representative on the NHS England End of Life Programme Board. She has a particular interest in Ethics and Communication.

Professor Natalie Pattison is a clinical academic who has worked clinically in cancer, critical care and critical care outreach. She is the Florence Nightingale Foundation Clinical Professor of Nursing with a joint appointment across the University of Hertfordshire and East and North Herts NHS Trust. She is the clinical lead for critical care follow-up services in her current Trust and led this at The Royal Marsden for many years, combining this with a research role.

Her research interests focus on her clinical area of critical care and critically ill ward patients, and cancer critical care. She is currently leading work related to: the role of critical care outreach in transitions to end of life, digital applications to support carers, end-of-life care in critical care, interventions to support families in ICU and critical care follow-up.

Natalie is Chair of the UK Critical Care Research Group, and is Vice-chair for PPI/Nursing representative for the NIHR National Specialty Group for Critical Care. She is also Vice-Chair of the National Outreach Forum, Deputy Chair of the UK Critical Care Nursing Alliance and has held editorial roles for journals. She is widely published in critical care supportive care.  Natalie is a member of the NIHR Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship review panel and various other panels.