Improving health and care for the next generation

Please note: this event has passed

Join us for this session of the Better Health & Care lunchtime webinar series, where we explore innovative approaches to improving care and support for children and young people with complex health needs.

Together, these talks will highlight how innovative, data-driven and family-centred approaches are transforming children’s health and care.

Talks

The role of health, education and social care in caring for children with life-limiting conditions and their families

🔹Professor Lorna Fraser, Professor of Palliative Care and Child Health, King’s College London

The first presentation will examine how we can shape better services for children and young people with life-limiting conditions. It will highlight how working closely with families and the workforce can influence national policy and improve funding and care pathways.

Lorna Fraser joined King's College London as Professor of Palliative Care and Child Health in November 2022 and is an NIHR Research Professor. Her background is in clinical paediatrics and her research focuses on children and young people.

She has a portfolio of funding from the major funders, including three NIHR fellowships. Her main area of expertise is the use of routine data to influence policy and address healthcare inequalities. Her work has influenced national service specifications, children's palliative care funding, and vaccine prioritisation for children with COVID.

Home neurophysiology diagnostics for children with complex needs

🔹 Dr Kimberley Whitehead, Senior Lecturer, King’s College London

The second presentation will explore how home neurophysiology diagnostics could transform care for children with complex neurological conditions. It will present preliminary results from integrating home-based data with measures of medical complexity, showing how such metrics can identify smarter, more resource-efficient uses of existing diagnostic pathways. The talk will also highlight the importance of explaining health data research in ways that make sense to families and the public, and will showcase a co-produced guide designed to support this engagement.

Dr Whitehead is a HCPC-registered Clinical Scientist in Neurophysiology. She qualified clinically in 2010. While working in the NHS, she conducted research into seizure disorders. She then moved to the Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology (NPP) at University College London (UCL), and completed a PhD in neonatal brain development. Between 2019-2023 she was a Principal Investigator at UCL, and co-affiliated to the Institute for Women’s Health alongside NPP, to apply insights from fetal medicine to her newborn neurology research. From late 2023, Dr Whitehead has been a Senior Lecturer at King’s College London, in the Research Division of Digital Health and Applied Technology Assessment. She has a special interest in neuromonitoring technologies applied to neonatal/developmental, critical care and sleep medicine, and epileptology. Her research is highly cross-disciplinary, inspired by ideas from pre-clinical models and fundamental biosciences, and maths and computer science.

Who should attend?

This webinar is open to all but will be of most interest to researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and those interested in improving health and care for children and young people. Whether you’re new to the Hub or already connected, this is a great opportunity to learn more and get involved.

Please note that this webinar will be recorded. The recording will be shared with those who signed up and on the Better Health & Care Hub YouTube channel following the event.