Job description

We are pleased to announce two PhD training fellowships available through the BuildPall capacity building programme at the Cicely Saunders Institute, King’s College London. We welcome applications from candidates with a healthcare background, including doctors, nurses, and allied healthcare professionals such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and pharmacists. These fellowships, spanning three years, aim to support individuals in conducting substantial research in palliative care and translating their findings into education programmes, impactful publications, and practical solutions.

BuildPall is dedicated to building a cadre of leading clinical academics, researchers, and educators committed to advancing palliative care. This includes training future clinicians, conducting research, and improving care for individuals affected by serious illness.

These fellowships offer a unique opportunity for promising individuals to work alongside world-renowned researchers and clinicians, establishing themselves as leaders in the field of palliative and end-of-life care. The awardees will develop a diverse set of research skills, gain experience in nationally and internationally significant research, and receive mentorship to lead the design, implementation, and dissemination of their research. They will also have access to leadership training to prepare them for future roles in clinical academia and academic palliative care.

The first fellowship funded by The Dinwoodie Charity and supported by Cicely Saunders International focuses on improving care and symptom management and empowerment for people who are not accessing specialist palliative care services and empowering their families and those important to them.

You will analyse data from two international mortality follow-back surveys (a well-established method of collecting views from bereaved relatives and family members about the last three months of life) and its impact on bereavement and grief. You will: understand successes and gaps in care for people during the last three months of life and importantly their families, which settings or transitions are most challenged (for example home or hospital) and how these influence perceived quality of life and person-centred outcomes; identify the different trajectories in the last three months of life and the points at which clinicians might more easily recognise opportunities to provide intervention to inform clinical guidelines; co-design educational materials to improve care and evaluate these for wide use by postgraduate clinicians.

The second fellowship funded by Cicely Saunders International offers a unique opportunity for a clinician or medical professional to engage in an innovative research project. This project integrates cutting-edge measurement theory with industry-leading practices to develop tailored measurement tools that address the specific needs of underserved populations.

You will be involved in further developing an existing outcome measure, the Integrated Palliative care Outcome Measure (IPOS) for clinical trials and related studies with special regards to ensuring its validity in underserved groups. You will work with an international team of experts and conduct research to explore the views of people from underserved groups and identify ways to improve their involvement in research and measurement, analyse existing IPOS data collected from research studies in different populations to determine its measurement properties in different groups and relationships to other outcome measures and co-produce ways to incorporate these findings into existing measurement frameworks and disseminate findings widely. You will lay a crucial role in generating evidence to address pressing questions related to access and equity in healthcare.

Both fellows will foster interdisciplinary collaborations, improve treatment strategies and drive advancements in clinical management. Additionally you will contribute to workshops, develop clinical guidance, expand research methodologies and disseminate educational materials.

These Fellowships are expected to deliver findings to improve the care for millions of people who are not able to access specialist palliative care by better understanding need, trajectories and how to respond. The resulting education materials will ensure wide impact alongside quality publications and impact in multiple domains including clinical care, service organisation and policy, education, national and local policy, NHS organisations and patients/families.

We encourage individuals with any healthcare background (medicine, nursing, allied health professionals) to apply. This fellowship covers salary, PhD fees (at the UK level), and research expenses, providing comprehensive support for career development and patient care improvement through palliative and end-of-life care research. Applicants undergoing clinical training are welcomed.

Interviews are tentatively scheduled on Wednesday 12 June 2024.

This post will be offered on a fixed term contract for 3 years.

This is a full-time post - 100% full time equivalent.

Key responsibilities

With the guidance and mentorship of experienced researchers the PhD Fellows will:

• Lead the design, implementation and dissemination of a research study as agreed with supervisors
• Undertake outlined research ensuring key deadlines are met and criteria for progression and leadership skills training
• Disseminating research findings and contribute to research impact
• Help achieve the aims of Cicely Saunders Institute research programmes by supporting the analysis and dissemination of ongoing work
• Actively work with Cicely Saunders International and key team members and ensuring this is reflected in presentations and meetings

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

Skills, knowledge, and experience

Essential criteria

1. A minimum Upper Second-Class degree in health or social sciences, medicine or related relevant areas
2. A relevant clinical/healthcare background such as medicine, nursing or allied healthcare professionals with a healthcare professional qualification
3. Committed to the advancement of palliative and end-of-life care through high quality research
4. Excellent research related computing skills – competent in word processing, familiar with reference management databases and the foundational competencies to enable the transfer of these skills to packages to support qualitative (e.g. NVivo) and quantitative analysis (e.g. SPSS, STATA, R)
5. An ability to work well as part of team including with other researchers, students, clinical staff, patients and family members
6. Able to work to deadlines and manage and prioritise workloads appropriately
7. Flexibility and adaptability
8. An ability to grasp new information and learn new skills quickly
9. A willingness to travel when required for the project for example to attend national and international conferences
10. Strong numeracy
11. Strong verbal and written communication skills as evidenced by reports, documents and presentations with ability to adapt to different audiences
12. Commitment to develop self and others

Desirable criteria

1. Clinical/healthcare registration with the appropriate body
2. Relevant MSc or equivalent or evidence in research training
3. Proven research experience – conducting research studies either independently or as part of a team at any stage from protocol development to funding application to dissemination including qualitative and quantitative research methods
4. Evidence of completion of research, audit or other projects to a good standard

Further information

This post is subject to Disclosure and Barring Service and Occupational Health clearances.