About this event

  • Date and time Tue 26 Nov 2024 from 9:00am to 5:00pm
  • Location Royal Society of Medicine
  • Organised by Palliative Care

Join this educative and insightful conference which aims to deliver informative lectures on the care gaps within palliative care and mental health. You will hear from a range of speakers who will discuss how we can best address the care needs of patients with severe mental illness and palliative care and the complex issues which may arise with disordered eating, boundaries, relationships and acute crises.

Participants will have the opportunity to reflect and study case based discussions at the end of each presentation and within the workshops on offer. The aim of the meeting is to provide participants with an interactive study day for all healthcare professionals who work with people who have been diagnosed with both:

  • Serious, severe or enduring mental illness
  • Potentially life-limiting, progressive illness requiring palliative care

Promoting multiprofessional and multidisciplinary learning through hands-on workshops and case based discussions. 

By attending the conference, you will

  • Gain an overview of innovations in best practice for meeting palliative needs of people with mental illness by: deepening understanding of approaches for working with people with personality disorders and or severe mental illness to deliver palliative care
  • Learn from best practice examples
  • Build your understanding of the importance of personalised approaches
  • Gain an awareness of current issues
  • Consider how services can make it easier for people to access help

The Palliative Care and Mental Health: Annual abstract prize will also be presented and awarded at the meeting. Click here to find out more and make your submission. 

 

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Tickets

Early Bird pricing available until 14 October 2024.

Member

RSM Fellow RSM Associate RSM Retired Fellow RSM Trainee RSM Student
£77.00 £46.00 £46.00 £46.00 £24.00

Non - Member

Consultant / GP / SAS Doctors AHP / Nurse / Midwife Trainee Student Prize Presenter
£141.00 £84.00 £84.00 £44.00 £24.00

Agenda

View the programme

Registration, tea and coffee
Welcome and introduction

Palliative care and severe mental illness

People with severe mental illness: A marginalised group who die very young with complex palliative care needs

The talk will demonstrate that people with Severe Mental Illness (SMI) such as Schizophrenia, Psychosis and Bipolar Disorder, die on average 20 years younger than people without SMI. The prevalence of common morbidity and multi-morbidity (3+ physical conditions) under the age of 75 years is much higher than for people with SMI than for those without and this leads to much higher rates of premature deaths from common conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, liver disease and respiratory disease. Premature mortality is very significantly higher in the most deprived 20% of people with SMI compared to the remaining 80%. The number and rate of people living with and dying with SMI prematurely is not evenly distributed across the country with a fourfold difference across Local Authority Geographies. Most people with SMI die with multiple psychological, physical and social problems, compounded by challenges accessing health and social services and therefore have complex palliative care needs. Preliminary data shows that people with SMI are half as likely as people without to die in Hospices. A cancer diagnosis may increase the chances of access to Palliative Care but only very late.

Professor Julia Verne, Consultant in Public Health Medicine

Living and dying with severe mental illness: A systematic review with last year of life data

This will cover an overview of our NIHR-funded Menloc evidence synthesis with some updates from a HCRW funded study. The Menloc review was conducted in two parts, first focusing on published research evidence and second, published case studies. We assessed the strength of findings of studies and identified implications for services where there is a high degree of confidence. We identified challenges of living with severe mental illness with an additional end-of-life condition in the context of organisation and delivery of care arrangements and note the absence of intervention studies for this group. Our more recent HCRW funded review adds some updates which will be briefly mentioned. In addition the presentation will cover recently examined routinely collected data for last year of life for a cohort of people with severe mental illness diagnoses in Wales. These data give us a first look at variation across the system of care for people living and dying in the context of severe mental illness and have helped us identify additional data needs for service improvement initiatives. 

Professor Michael Coffey, Professor of Public Health, Swansea University

Panel discussion

Is there a role for Palliative Care in relation to eating disorders?

Look at the arguments for and against palliative care having a role in managing people with eating disorders (Clinically, Capacity to consent, Ethically). What does the evidence tell us? What are the controversies? Reflect on some cases (What is the same? What is different? What have we learnt?)

Dr Rob Freudenthal, Consultant Psychiatrist, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust and Dr Joanne Brady, Consultant in Palliative Care, Barnet Hospital and North London Hospice

Case based discussion
Tea and coffee break
Addressing the gap between palliative care and mental health

This session will explore the relationship between mental health and palliative care services, and how the gap in care for people living with serious mental illness and a life limiting condition can be addressed. Dr Butler will highlight this using case-based examples from working in a Psychiatry service at St Christopher’s Hospice. Dr Shields will bring the perspective of a hospital-based Psychological Care Team working in cancer services, and hold a panel discussion where participants are encouraged to bring case or service examples for discussion.

Dr Greg Shields, Consultant Psychiatrist, King’s College Hospital Cancer Psychological Care Team and Dr Matt Butlers, Psychiatry Specialist Registrar, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, St Christophers Hospice

Case based discussion
Lunch

Workshops

These workshops are interactive and we encourage all attendees to take part. Please select a workshop to secure your spot.

Personality disorder and palliative care: Case based discussions

This workshop will be run by Joe Druce from the Haringey Personality Disorder service. It aims to offer a brief overview of personality disorders and how attachments may relate to complex issues at the end of life. The workshop will primarily provide a learning and reflective space for healthcare professionals to discuss complex cases of patients with comorbid personality disorders who are also under palliative care

Workshop lead: Mr Joseph Druce

Containing a community crisis: An end of life perspective

Drawing upon a real-life case and the lived experiences of both healthcare professionals and family members, this workshop will help link theory with practice and identify areas of conflict and complexity in the community setting.  By viewing the case from different perspectives, the workshop is designed to improve awareness of different viewpoints and begin to think through how expectations can be better understood, managed and achieved in the future.

Workshop lead: Dr Sian Davies

 

Voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED). Implications for palliative care and mental health professionals

This workshop will explore the challenges and implications for healthcare professionals when someone chooses to voluntarily stop eating and drinking in order to hasten their death. We will draw on case examples to discuss some of the ethical, legal, emotional and practical aspects of VSED, and relate these to both palliative care and mental health specialties.

Workshop lead: Dr Sara Robbins

Open papers

Session to be populated by Palliative Care and Mental Health: Annual abstract prize submissions

Chair: Dr Daniel Hughes, Consultant Psychiatrist, Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust

Tea and coffee break

Dissociating dimensions of interoception

The brain and body are intrinsically and dynamically coupled. Interoception is the process by which the nervous system senses, integrates and interprets internal bodily sensations, such as signals arising from the heart. Cognitive processing, pain experience and emotional feeling states are all influenced by different levels of interoceptive processing. These interoceptive levels encompass afferent, neural, behavioural accuracy and higher-order measures related to interoceptive judgments ascertained via subjective report. This talk will detail how these different interoceptive dimensions, at different levels of processing, can shape cognition, emotion and pain. These interoceptive mechanisms are selectively altered in different clinical conditions with implications for symptoms. The implications of interoceptive processing for palliative care will be addressed.

Professor Sarah Garfinkel, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London 

Case based discussions
Close of meeting

Location

Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole St, Marylebone, London, W1G 0AE, United Kingdom

 

Registration for this event will close at 1:00am on Monday 25 November 2024. Late registrations will not be accepted.

The agenda is subject to change at any time

If the event is recorded, we are only able to share presentations that we have received permission to share. There is no guarantee that all sessions will be available after the event, this is at the presenter’s and RSM’s discretion.

All views expressed at this event are of the speakers themselves and not of the Royal Society of Medicine, nor the speaker's organisations.

This event will be recorded and stored by the Royal Society of Medicine and may be distributed in future on various internet channels.

 

Domus - reception

While you’re attending this event

Why not stay in the comfort of our hotel, Domus Medica, book dinner in the restaurant, or even hire one of our private dining rooms to socialise with your peers?

RSM members enjoy access to our enviable club facilities. For more information, please contact our team at domus@rsm.ac.uk or restaurant@rsm.ac.uk.

Find out more