We are proud to provide high quality education and learning experiences that are responsive to the frequently changing needs of the health and social care workforce.
Our Education: Helping to improve end of life and palliative care.
Our Clinical Education Programme
As a centre of excellence in palliative care, The Hospice of St Francis is committed to empowering health and social care professionals through collaboration, expertise, passion, education and learning.
We are proud of our ability to provide high quality education and learning experiences that are responsive to the frequently changing needs of the health and social care workforce and its patients.
We primarily use virtual platforms to deliver our education programme. This is a more inclusive way of delivering education and enables us to share our knowledge and experience with a much wider audience. Our interactive and highly original sessions are developed and delivered by a multi-disciplinary team with many years of experience in providing palliative and end of life care and palliative rehabilitation.
In addition we offer student placements and a range of skills and personal development training opportunities for clinicians, non-clinicians and volunteers.
#MeetTheTeam
Find out more about our facilitators...
Claire Nicell
Joint Head of Education and Learning
Her palliative care experience has involved working in hospitals, hospices and as a Community Specialist Palliative Care Nurse. More recently her focus and experience has switched to education. Within Hertfordshire she was part of the ABC project delivering palliative and end of life care to care homes throughout the county and then spent 18 months with the palliative care team at Watford General Hospital implementing The Rose Project (to promote dignity and respect at the end of life).
Claire loves working collaboratively with different colleagues across the social and health care sectors and helping individuals apply the principles of palliative care to their setting to promote excellent palliative care for those they care for.
She keeps her hand in clinically by working with her colleagues in the Community Palliative Care team and supporting a support group for patients with Pulmonary Fibrosis to ensure she practices what she teaches!
Manisha Cook
Lecturer Practitioner and Specialist Physiotherapist
Manisha has worked as a specialist physiotherapist at The Hospice of St Francis for 9 years and previously has worked in community and acute healthcare settings in London and Hertfordshire.
Manisha has recently completed her level 4 Certificate in Teaching and Education, and is committed to providing a specialist palliative education programme for Allied Health Professionals and the wider multi-disciplinary team.
Amy Smissen
Lecturer Practitioner and Community Occupational Therapist
Throughout her career she has worked in a range of settings including a community learning disability team, an inpatient neurological rehab unit and a local charity providing support to people living with long-term neurological conditions.
Amy joined the Hospice of St Francis in 2023 and works 3 days a week in the Community Team, bringing her unique OT perspective to enable community patients to optimise their function and ultimately, their overall quality of life. Amy has always enjoyed facilitating therapeutic groupwork sessions, running workshops and training sessions both for patients and carers and with fellow clinicians. These skills lend themselves well to her Lecturer Practitioner role, which she took on in early 2024.
Linda Harris
Joint Head of Education and Learning
She ran her own business for 23 years, providing accounting software solutions to a diverse range of market sectors in the SME marketplace. Partnering with organisations such as Computer Cab, The Match Rooms, Forth Medical, British Steel, and The Diocese of Gibralter in Europe.
Linda is keen to collaborate and build relationships with our peers and business partners. Motivated by the challenge of exceeding customer expectation and the building of a strong team she strives to deliver a first class service to our learners, thereby maintaining our reputation as a centre for palliative and end of life care excellence in education and learning.
Caroline Smith
Administrator
She has experience of the Travel, Financial Services and Automotive industries, having worked as an IT Project Manager for the last 20 years. She has a BA (Hons) in Business Studies, and has returned to her earlier career roots in administration, with a strong interest in training and continuous learning.
Caroline is keen to support both the training & development and volunteer services areas of the Hospice with their administration needs, with a particular focus on streamlining and improving processes, where possible.
Kathryn Batstone
Education and Learning Assistant
With a BA (Hons) Degree in Travel and Tourism Kathryn is well placed to provide wide ranging administrative support within the Education and Learning Team.
We're delighted to have her on board!
Dee Cooke
Lecturer Practitioner/ Nurse
Dee has worked in a range of settings including a community team, care home improvement team and clinical skills facilitator team.
Dee joined the team in April 2024 and works clinically alongside delivering end of life care education.
Dee is passionate about supporting staff to get it right even in stressful situations.
Find out more about our clinical education services...
Our Clinical Education Programme
Relevant, accessible, quality end of life care education for colleagues in health and social care across the hospital, community, home, and care home settings.
Find out more
Bespoke Education & Training
Are you looking to develop your workforce? Take a look at our full and half day workshops.
Download more information
Clinical Practice Placements
We offer a variety of placements, offering a valuable clinical practice learning environment to all our students and clinical visitors, and providing an understanding of palliative care in practice.
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We have formal education programmes based at The Hospice of St Francis. We also offer education and mentorship in local settings throughout our catchment area and can customise programmes to suit the needs of different professionals.
Throughout everything, our ethos has always been to provide exceptional care - an ambition recognised by the Care Quality Commission, the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England, who awarded The Hospice of St Francis an ‘Outstanding’ rating in 2016.
You can find out more information about End of Life Care on the NHS England website.