Exploring new ideas about how we can live and die in an age of complex change.
Selected, published writing and research.
The children’s palliative care provider of the future: A blueprint to spark, scale and share innovation
Imperial College London
with Jonty Roland, Madeleine Lambert, Alexandra Shaw, Laura Dale-Harris and Gianluca Fontana, 2022
This policy report sets out an optimistic vision of what a world-class provider of children’s palliative care (CPC) could look like in the future. It proposes nine key features through which providers can innovate to improve access and quality over time, drawing on best practice and trends as described by 50 CPC service leaders in 27 countries, as well as insights from other healthcare sectors.
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This Too Shall Pass: Collective mourning in the age of Covid-19
Larger Us
with Alex Evans and Casper ter Kuile, 2020
We argue that in conditions of such widespread loss as the ones we now face, it’s essential that we grieve well - and that this means doing so collectively, not just on our own.
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Designing systems of care for a modern death
Lancet Commission on the Value of Death, 2019
In order to meaningfully transform our relationship with death and dying – to make it more human-centred, socially-connected and interconnected – we need to take a more relational approach to end of life that encompasses the wider, non-medical ecosystems of care. In other words, we need to take a systemic approach to end of life care.
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A trip beyond fear: psychedelics and the end of life
Open Democracy
with Rosanna Ellis, Sam Gandy and Eddie Jacobs, 2020
We explore how a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that psychedelic substances such as psilocybin - the active ingredient in so-called ‘magic mushrooms’ - could have an important role to play in addressing the psychological and spiritual aspects of end-of-life care in ways that currently go unmet.
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An atmosphere of grief: living with loss in the Anthropocene
2019-20
This three-part essay collection outlines how we are living through the sixth mass extinction, due to climate change and ecological breakdown. Collectively, we are experiencing unprecedented change and decline within a short time, with visceral feelings and experiences of grief and loss.
However, rather than simply despair in the face of extinction, these experiences of loss, and the resulting collectives forms of mourning are an important transitional step in a changing world.
Although, the scale and depth of change is unique, we have gone through transitions like this before. In Part 1 I described how bad things are. In Part 2, I described how we’ve been here before, and how people have responded in the past. In Part 3, I unpack some of the fundamental framings of grief and loss in the age of the Anthropocene, and put forward some (perhaps) difficult propositions, but with the aim to help us find solidarity and community through collective mourning, in a way that respects and honours our own and other cultures and histories, and enables us to move to another state of being — together — in the face of possible extinction.
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Read Part 2
Read Part 3
Last orders: pain relief at the end of life
Why we need to re-think what pain is and how drugs can help
2016
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The latest challenge in design? Create a better way to die
Quartz, 2015