Dr Amy Gadoud of Lancaster University has been named as the first ever NIHR Research Delivery Network National Lead for Palliative Care.

Dr Gadoud is a Senior Lecturer in Palliative Medicine at Lancaster Medical School where she is also the NIHR Integrated Clinical Academic Training Lead. She works clinically as an Honorary Community Consultant in Palliative Medicine at Trinity Hospice and Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Her new role is to provide senior leadership and strategic direction as one of 30 national speciality Leads for the Department of Health and Social Care’s new NIHR Research Delivery Network (RDN).

This is the first time that Palliative Care has been named as a speciality.

The new NIHR RDN will operate as one unified organisation across England, balancing regional context, expertise and leadership with national coordination and strategy involving government policymakers.

Dr Gadoud said: “I will provide strategic leadership to improving the evidence base in Palliative Care to support health and care services in helping people at the end of their lives to live as well as possible, and die with dignity, compassion and comfort.

“We will work to deliver research into the diversity of settings including primary care; community, residential care and hospitals and especially hospices. Linking NIHR RDN infrastructure with hospices will allow high-quality clinical research to take place in these settings.”

National Specialty Leads are high calibre ambassadors for the NIHR RDN. In collaboration with teams across RDN, the Leads proactively develop effective relationships with decision-makers in the public sector, charity and life science organisations (non-commercial, pharma, medtech, diagnostics and biotech) and other related external stakeholders to further the aims of the NIHR RDN.