Transformational Learning
Care for a person and their family at the end of life is influenced by many factors; culture, beliefs and personal experience. Even the institutional norms of our organisations impact how we deliver care. QELCA® gives learners the opportunity to explore and reflect on these personal and professional issues.
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.
John Dewey
About QELCA®
QELCA®
QELCA® Trainers
Methodology
QELCA® (a UK Registered Trademark) stands for 'Quality End of Life Care for All' and is delivered by palliative care practitioners. The original programme comprises 5 days immersion in a palliative care setting followed by 6 Action Learning sessions.
Methodology
QELCA® Trainers
Methodology
QELCA® Trainers are trained to use a distinct pedagogical approach. Transformational learning uses meaningful experience and through skilled facilitation supports deep reflection, evaluation and an action plan for change.
QELCA® Trainers
QELCA® Trainers
QELCA® Trainers
QELCA® can only be delivered by palliative care practitioners who have attended the QELCA® Train the Trainer programme. The training includes delivering QELCA® under supervision and successfully completing a reflective assignment.
QELCA® at St Christopher's CARE UK
St Christopher's CARE
QELCA® –an innovative learning programme originally created, developed and endorsed by St Christopher’s Hospice, UK
QELCA® is now led and owned by Liz Bryan, Senior Associate of CARE and an independent consultant.
QELCA® worldwide
Since 2016 QELCA® has been used by palliative care teams in several countries across the world to enhance palliative and end of life care provision.
About Liz Bryan
Independent Education Consultant
I am an independent palliative and end of life care education consultant. Currently holding the position of Senior Associate at St Christopher’s CARE, I was the Director of Education and Training at St Christopher’s between 2013 and 2019.
My Background
My background is in palliative care nursing, counselling psychotherapy and adult education. For 12 years I lectured part-time at the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care at Kings College London, supporting the delivery of evidence-based palliative and end of life care academic education. This is a role I relinquished in order to focus fulltime on leading, as Director of Education and Training at St Christopher’s, the design of the new building and concept, later to be renamed St Christopher’s CARE.
My Commitment
I am committed to driving local, national and international development of palliative and end of life care. My particular focus is on designing and evaluating programmes of transformational learning that sustain impact on practice. I designed the QELCA® Programme whilst Director at St Christopher’s and now own the intellectual property, continuing to work with partners in the UK and abroad. For example, in China and Brazil, QELCA® is being used as a tool to build national capacity, as culturally adapted palliative care services evolve to meet the needs of the population.
Engage with QELCA®
Why the acorn on our logo?
Over several years of delivering the QELCA® Train the Trainer programme the acorn (the seed of the mighty oak tree) has come to represent a symbolic emblem, not only of what we aspire to grow but of what we actually witness through the facilitation of the QELCA® methodology. From a relatively short programme really quite impressive initiatives have developed.
Exploring QELCA® as an educational tool
If you represent an organisation involved in palliative and end of life education and are wanting to learn more about how QELCA® might support your efforts, please make contact and I will be delighted to discuss with you how we might be able to help. Alternatively, contact one of the Satellites - contact details are available on this website or I can connect you.
Becoming a QELCA® Satellite
To deliver QELCA® an organisation must invest in the training of two experienced members of their palliative care team to become QELCA® Trainers. Once they have piloted QELCA and demonstrated that it is effective as an educational tool in their context, that organisation can consider becoming a QELCA® Satellite with a licence to deliver QELCA® locally and/or host QELCA® Train the Trainer. If alternatively an organisation intends only to deliver QELCA® to its own staff it can become an Affiliate.
Meet some of the QELCA® Satellites
LWPA - China
Premier Institute - Brazil
Premier Institute - Brazil
Beijing Living Will Promotion Association (LWPA), as the first non-profit organization in China dedicated to promoting living will, was established in 2013, building upon the foundation of the "Choice and Dignity" website established in 2006. Since its establishment, the association has been committed to promoting living will and palliative care, advocating for their implementation in China through the promotion of concepts, policy advocacy, discipline construction, and international exchange and cooperation.
Premier Institute - Brazil
Premier Institute - Brazil
Premier Institute - Brazil
The Premier Institute focuses on projects in education, research, culture, social action, and activism for public policies in Palliative Care and ageing, promoted by Premier Hospital until 2023. Premier Hospital was founded in 2004 to build and offer a comprehensive healthcare model guided by the philosophy of Palliative Care.
Officially launched in 2018, Premier Institute brings together healthcare professionals, journalists, musicians, artists, and educators committed to opposing the hegemonic healthcare model sustainably and innovatively by generating and sharing skills, abilities and attitudes to improve the quality of life of people and their families and guarantee human rights.
Strathcarron - Scotland
Strathcarron Hospice, founded in 1981, provides specialist palliative care and expert end of life care for the people of Forth Valley, Cumbernauld and Kilsyth to people with illnesses that cannot be cured including cancer, lung, heart or kidney failure and a range of non-malignant and neurological diseases. Strathcarron Hospice is also actively involved in research and education in palliative care and we promote and influence the delivery of palliative care locally and beyond.
The Myton Hospices - England
At The Myton Hospices we are passionate about providing learning and development opportunities to all organisations that provide palliative and end of life care in the wider Coventry and Warwickshire community.
Our Clinical Education Team offer professional development, evidence-based education and training in palliative and end of life care.
Living Will Promotion Association (LWPA)
The 1st International QELCA® Satellite
In order to cultivate pilots in the field of palliative care in China, LWPA, an influential leader, has collaborated with the St. Christopher's in the UK since the Spring of 2016 to implement the QELCA® project.
QELCA® in China
The first QELCA® Train the Trainer (TtT) course in China was launched in December 2016 in Beijing, with Liz Bryan, then the Director of Education and Training, personally conducting the training sessions. With the expansion of the training, palliative care, professionals in China have gained a deeper understanding and recognition of QELCA® as a distinct and effective learning methodology.
Building Capacity
As of December 2023, a total of 10 training sessions have been conducted, 230 QELCA® trainers and 800 participants were trained, covering 49 cities and 110 hospitals across China. Starting from 2024, the collaboration with Liz Bryan will be continued to advance QELCA® in China.
Ongoing Vision
LWPA will continue to deliver QELCA® training more palliative care professionals to enhance the quality of end-of-life care. This will promote the localization of palliative care services, making them more culturally and environmentally suitable for China.
The Premier Institute
QELCA® in Brazil
The Premier Institute was certified in 2019 as the QELCA® Satellite Centre for Brazil. Since 2021, QELCA® Train the Trainer has been offered to about 11 palliative care reference organisations annually to promote a practical impact on the quality of end-of-life care across the country. Due to their commitment to promoting Palliative Care in Brazil, primarily through the public health system, the Premier Institute entirely financed QELCA® for public institutions.
Focus on Health Professionals
QELCA® is a transformative and empowering tool designed to foster compassionate care for professionals and their teams, individuals at the end of life and their families. The Premier Institute's vision is centred on the qualification of health professionals dedicated to the population's needs, envisioning them as cooperative citizens in the construction of a supportive society. Furthermore, the institute is committed to expanding the QELCA® network in Brazil, transcending the boundaries of specialized services in Palliative Care.
Strathcarron Hospice
Our QELCA® Journey
We started out QELCA® journey in 2016 when two of our team became QELCA® facilitators. Since that time, over 120 Nurses, GPs, Healthcare Assistants and Paramedics have spent a week with us experiencing the transformational mix of classroom learning, practice placement and facilitated reflection, followed by Action Learning Sets. More recently, another member of our team has become a QELCA® facilitator and we have plans to train another to ensure our QELCA® offer is sustainable. The Hospice team as a whole have grown in confidence in supporting participants in their practice placements, and we have learned that the QELCA® process ‘takes a Hospice’ to be a success.
How QELCA® Helps Us
QELCA® provides an opportunity for teams in our local area to spend time learning with us and reflecting on their own practice and ultimately gives them the confidence, knowledge and skills to continue to care for people who are approaching the end of life in their own familiar environments.
Over the years, QELCA® participants have told us that as a result of attending the course, their confidence in supporting people approaching the end of life has grown. They feel able to recognise when someone is dying and make proactive plans to support patients and families and find out what is important to them. Staff report that instead of avoiding the subject of death, they feel able to discuss it openly with families, which means that important conversations can take place.
Action Learning
Following the week-long QELCA® course at the Hospice, participants attend Action Learning sets where they have the opportunity to share their change projects with others, and explore ways to overcome any barriers they may encounter as they try to implement changes. A recent group of GPs who attended QELCA® have shared some of their plans with us:
Communication:
Being more intentional about picking up on cues and having conversations about Future Care Planning (FCP) – developing FCP Resources folder for patients and professionals.
Staff support:
Developing a group for social support for staff – to provide support for well-being and team connection. Checking in on staff, including reception and support colleagues.
Gold Standards Framework:
Revisiting these meetings, ensuring the right people are discussed, and checking on the structure and frequency of them. Linking with colleagues from across teams.
Feedback
The feedback from a recent QELCA® week with paramedics shows the depth of the experience:
"A very comfortable and open environment to be in. ALL staff were so welcoming and willing to listen and teach".
"I have more confidence to have 'tender' conversations with patients and their families, using softer language...and also allowing more time to have these sensitive discussions".
"I would highly recommend QELCA® to everyone".
The Myton Hospices
Our QELCA® Journey
The Myton QELCA® team has been delivering QELCA® training programmes since 2018 to a wide range of professionals working across health and social care settings locally. Our cohorts of participants have included NHS ward nurses from acute hospital trusts, residential and nursing home staff and paramedics from West Midlands Ambulance Service. QELCA® integrates a work-based action learning experience altogether with clinical colleagues who work together in the same teams or clinical setting. Classroom reflection in a group of peers supports the learning, facilitated by specialist palliative care clinicians who have undertaken the ‘Train the Trainers’ programme.
QELCA® at Myton Hospices
During each QELCA® programme participants have the opportunity to work alongside senior doctors and nurses within our Inpatient Units and Myton at Home service. These experiences are designed to deepen their understanding of palliative and end of life care across different settings while working clinically alongside professionals who are skilled and experienced in providing palliative and end of life care.
Over the subsequent six months, the Myton QELCA® Facilitators continue to support QELCA® participants using Action Learning as they develop and implement quality improvement projects in palliative and end of life care within their own clinical areas.
Feedback from some of our previous participants:
"The best course I have been on in my entire career"
"I found the course content very pertinent and highlights the importance of the individual, patient, and clinician. The format of how it was structured was excellent".
"This course has given me an overwhelming thirst to make as many clinicians as possible aware of best practice I have seen, in palliative and end of life care"
"I thoroughly enjoyed all the study sessions and believe they will be beneficial to my department and practice in the future"
"Learning how to communicate more effectively and confidently will help me during sensitive conversations"
"I will now be able to promote palliative and end of life care at a local level to improve care for patients in my clinical area"
"I was nervous about coming to a hospice for the first time, but will be able to reassure my patients about how calm and safe it felt, it didn’t feel sad like I thought it would be"
"This course opened up my mind regarding empathy and how to take compassion forward in my organisation"
"The hospice nurses were so compassionate, I’d like to nurture the same compassion in my own team"
"Thank you for ‘Firing up’ the passion in us for palliative and end of life care"
QELCA® Train the Trainer 2025
Online
Scotland
Scotland
Delivered via ZOOM over 4 half-days (09.00 to 13.00 UK)
DATES: 4th, 6th, 11th and 13th March 2025
PRICE: £850 per person
Scotland
Scotland
Scotland
Delivered face to face over 2 full-days
Hosted by Strathcarron Hospice, Denny, Scotland
DATES: To be confirmed
PRICE: £850 per person