Helping you change how you care for the dying, even when change feels risky.
I help hospices and health organisations understand why their services struggle, use design to navigate the cultural and political realities to change and practically build the products and services that open up new ways of providing care.
I understand the challenges you face
Services that provide palliative and end-of-life care are under serious strain. It is not the failure of individuals, but of broader systemic challenges that are not easily fixed, but can be worked through if we look at the solutions differently.
Disparate, uncoordinated services undermine the quality of end of life care in the community, while creating both service gaps and duplication.
Patients, families and professionals frequently do not know whom to contact or when, producing personal stress, pain, delay and crisis-driven hospital contact.
Nurses face low pay, burnout and increasingly complex patients and workloads.
Relational care depends on staff who know the system and the person; an ageing, retiring workforce undermines this.
Care homes are on course to be the leading place of death by 2040, yet carry no statutory palliative care duty and so rarely invest in long-term strategies to support people at end-of-life.
Anticipatory pain medications can be hard to get hold of, or sit in the house with nobody able to administer them, a problem compounded out of hours.
There isn't any shortage of academic research in the field but data isn't joined up, and evidence isn't consistently translated into clinical or community practice.
What I do differently
You might ask me for a service map, a prototype or a workshop, and I'll deliver it. But I use each one to surface what hasn't been said and make explicit what people would rather not talk about. So the design work does two jobs: it gives you what you asked for, and it gets to the heart of things, where change actually happens.
Understanding what’s really going on
- Discovery research and stakeholder interviews
- Research with patients, families and staff, in clinical settings and at home
- Service blueprints and system mapping
- Journey mapping across patients, carers and professionals
- Evidence synthesis and analysis of qualitative data
Making and testing what could work
- Co-design with staff, patients and families
- Workshop facilitation, including groups working through sensitive or difficult conversations
- Concept development and opportunity framing
- Rapid prototyping, from paper to working software and processes
- Service prototyping and pilots
- Emerging-technology prototypes
Changing how care is delivered
- Business cases, board presentations
- Implementation and pilot planning
- Funding bids and partnership building
- Design leadership, team coaching and capability building
A 12-week discovery for hospice chief executives who know their model of care has to change
Collaborating with David Burland and Heather Richardson, I support hospice CEOs who believe their model of care needs to change but can't make the case internally, because most people around them see change as risky or unnecessary, or need external validation first.
In 12 weeks you will have an in-depth analysis of your current services, three new service opportunities, and the confidence and evidence to make the case for investment.
Trusted by hospices, healthcare organisations and the death care industry
Let's talk about your challenges
I offer a free 30-minute consultation to explore how we might work together. We can discuss (with no strings attached) your current challenges, share relevant experiences and identify possible next steps.