Assisted Dying - exploring the facts and feeling around assisted dying

Thursday 4th September 2025
9:30 am to 1:00 pm
Acorn Suite, The Hospice of St Francis HP4 3GW

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Compassionate Communication Skills (1)

Who should attend:

Open to all internal and external patient facing staff and volunteers

NOTE: This session is face to face

Course Aims:

To introduce participants to the concept of compassionate communication so this can be applied to practice

Objectives:

  • To identify communication challenges that you face in your role
  • To describe and give examples of what helps and hinders effective communication
  • To reflect on possible responses/skills
  • To pin point personal resilience techniques

Presented by

Amy Smissen)

Amy Smissen

Lecturer Practitioner and Community Occupational Therapist

Amy is a qualified Occupational Therapist with 25 years experience working in both clinical and leadership roles. With a passion for the palliative rehab approach to empower patients to self-manage Amy enjoys sharing her knowledge and skills within the team and wider audiences.

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.

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Dee Cooke)

Dee Cooke

Lecturer Practitioner/ Nurse

Dee started her nursing career in a general hospital on both medicine and gynae wards. Passionate about developing people and empowering them with skills and knowledge to provide excellent care to their patients her lecturer practitioner role is a perfect fit.

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.

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How do I book?

For enquiries and to book please contact our education team.

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