Everyone who cares for a dying person deserves the right skills to care well. We make that learning easy.
Expert-led palliative care education from Scotland's first hospice — beautifully filmed, built on the science of how people learn, and designed to take every practitioner from novice to expert.
Why it matters
Great end-of-life care starts with confident, well-prepared people.
Almost every health and care professional will support someone at the end of life — in a hospital ward, a GP practice, a care home or a family's living room. When they feel confident and well prepared, the difference for patients and families is enormous.
St Margaret of Scotland Hospice, Scotland's first hospice, is sharing its expertise through a new pathway of palliative care education that builds on the great work already happening in universities, colleges and care settings: expert-led, video-first, easy to fit into a working day, and designed to take every practitioner from novice to expert.
What it is
A centre of excellence for palliative care learning — carried by more than 75 years of practice.
[ Platform name ] brings the clinical wisdom of St Margaret of Scotland Hospice to every professional who needs it. Its roots run back to the Religious Sisters of Charity, founded by Mary Aikenhead, whose hospices in Dublin and London were the tradition in which Dame Cicely Saunders shaped the modern hospice movement.
Now that tradition becomes a structured, accredited learning pathway: mini-lectures from hospice clinicians and academics, real case studies from the wards and the community, reflection, short assessments and refreshers — sold to the institutions that train and employ the workforce, and reinvested in care.
Who it's for
Learning for every discipline.
Palliative care happens wherever people are cared for. Whatever their role, practitioners want to feel confident about what palliative care is, how to talk about dying, how to manage symptoms and how to support families through loss.
[ Platform name ] supports the organisations that train and employ them — licensed by institution, with pathways tailored to each role and designed to sit alongside their existing teaching.
Universities & colleges
Nursing, medical, AHP and social work programmes adding a credible palliative care strand.
NHS boards, trusts & hospitals
Ward teams who care for people at the end of life every week.
GP practices & primary care
Recognising palliative needs early and planning care in the community.
Care homes & care at home
The front line of end-of-life care — with flexible learning that fits around shifts.
Social care & social work
Supporting people, families and carers through decisions, loss and grief.
Hospices
A shared, high-quality curriculum and mandatory training for hospice teams.
The pathway
From novice to expert — mapped to Scotland's national framework.
Every module is built against the five domains and four levels of the NES / SSSC palliative and end of life care learning framework, so learners and employers always know where they are, what comes next, and how it counts towards registration and CPD.
Framework: Enriching and Improving Experience — NHS Education for Scotland & Scottish Social Services Council, refreshed 2025 as the Palliative Care Education Framework.
What we'll build
Three strands of learning, one connected platform.
A core clinical pathway for the wider workforce, the hospice's own mandatory training made digital, and real case studies that bring both to life.
Palliative care, from first principles
Expert-led modules, each with learning outcomes, reflection points and assessment.
- The evolution of hospice care
- Fundamentals of palliative care
- Communication in palliative care
- Symptom assessment and management
- Understanding pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics
- Loss, grief and bereavement
Hospice essentials, made digital
Streamlined access, consistent delivery, and built-in refreshers and assessment.
- Vision and Values — lecture, feedback session & examples
- Health and safety — lecture
- Fire safety — lecture with walk-around visuals
- Infection prevention and control — with hospice locations & graphics
- Moving and handling — short on-site supplement
Real care, across every service
Short documentary-style films following patients, families and teams through each of the hospice's services.
- In-patient care — specialist care on the ward, including mobility and pain management
- Community palliative care — supporting patients and families at home
- Out-patient clinic — specialist assessment and review
- Clinical intervention clinic — planned treatment and procedures, explained
- Day hospice — living well, at the hospice and at home, with family
- 24/7 advice and support — help for patients, families and professionals, day and night
Accelerated titles in development
Further modules prioritised with the hospice's clinical and education leads.
Our work in education
We've done this before — at world-class standard.
For leading universities, foundations and medical organisations, we've turned serious academic and clinical knowledge into learning people choose to watch. The same studio, the same production values and the same learning design will sit around every [ Platform name ] module.
Micro-learning at a scale no one else reaches
Thousands of micro-learning sequences produced through our ongoing Learning Sparks Studio partnership with ASU — credential-ready modules spanning healthcare, pharma, advanced manufacturing and core science, built for access, retention and real-world application.
Brain health, from an expert, made watchable
A short, academic-led lecture on Alzheimer's and brain health — one of 800+ pieces from our Learning Sparks studio.
◆ Complex, credible health science that learners actually finish.
FitsCore pathway lectures from hospice consultants
Confidentiality, made clear
Professional-standards learning for doctors and healthcare teams, from our work with MDDUS — essential compliance content made engaging across a whole series.
◆ Trusted by a leading medical defence organisation.
FitsMandatory training and refreshers
Learning that comes to life, in real time
Our LIVELY approach brings the energy of live, presenter-led learning to a global audience — real people sharing real experience.
◆ Turning passive viewers into an engaged, connected community.
FitsPractitioner stories and peer learning
Degree-level science, delivered as a platform
RealChem — a platform framework developed with Arizona State University and Carnegie Mellon University, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
◆ Rigorous science, accessible to learners at scale.
FitsPharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and the science of care
Complex processes, explained clearly
An accessible walk-through of a new technology — our explainer format for clear "how it works" learning.
◆ Clarity for technical subjects, without dumbing down.
FitsMedicines, procedures and equipment
[ Cronkite project title ]
[ One or two lines on the Cronkite work — what it was and who it was for. ]
◆ [ Impact line ]
FitsDocumentary case studies with patients and families
Formats that fit around every module
Each module combines the right formats for the subject and the learner.
Peer-to-peer learning
The best teachers are often the people doing the work.
Alongside expert lectures, the platform grows a library of short, peer-generated content: nurses, carers, GPs, social workers and hospice teams sharing what they have learned at the bedside, in the community and with families.
Captured with our LIVELY approach and reviewed by the hospice's clinical educators, it turns everyday practice into shared knowledge — and builds a community of practitioners learning from one another across Scotland and beyond.
◆Practice stories
Short films of colleagues describing a real situation, what they did, and what they would do differently.
◆"How I do it" moments
Practical tips from experienced staff — a difficult conversation, a mouth-care routine, a family meeting.
◆Clinically reviewed
Every contribution checked by hospice educators before it goes live, so quality and safety never slip.
◆A growing community
Learners become contributors — a living library that stays current and relevant to real practice.
How it works
Hospice expertise in. Learning that scales, out.
One production model turns the knowledge already inside St Margaret's into a complete programme — captured once, and reused everywhere it's needed.
Capture the knowledge
Studio and on-location filming with hospice consultants, nurses, educators, academics, patients and families. Interview-led formats mean minimal preparation for busy clinicians.
Design the learning
Each session becomes mini-lectures, case studies, reflection points and short assessments — sequenced against the framework and built on the science of how people learn and retain.
Deliver, refresh & measure
Delivered through partners' learning platforms or our own, with certificates and CPD — plus clear evidence of who is learning, how deeply, and what is improving in practice.
Why it works
Learning designed on evidence — and on emotion.
Palliative care is as much about how practitioners feel as what they know. Our design approach combines decades of research into multimedia learning with the storytelling craft of broadcast film-making.
Empirically informed pedagogy
Core multimedia principles — coherence, signalling, segmenting, modality, embodiment and personalisation (Mayer, 2021) — are built into every script, edit and graphic.
Threshold concepts, unlocked
Learning journeys structured to break down the ideas that hold practitioners back, matched to each learner's stage from novice to expert.
Made to hold attention
Content has to coexist with Netflix and TikTok. Narrative arc, real voices and cinematic quality keep learners engaged emotionally as well as intellectually.
Ready for AI and for measurement
Every piece is designed to stand alone or recombine, so it can power personalised AI-driven pathways and be tested for learning impact across different learner profiles.
Delivery, sorted
Into every learning platform — or on its own.
Universities, NHS boards and care providers all use different systems. Every module is built to standards so it drops into the platform an institution already runs — or is delivered directly through the hospice's own branded portal.
Works with existing LMS. Built to SCORM / xAPI standards for Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard and NHS learning platforms.
A branded hospice portal. For care homes, practices and smaller organisations without a platform of their own.
CPD that counts. Certificates and evidence to support professional registration, revalidation and post-registration learning.
Tracking and reporting. Completion, assessment results and engagement by organisation, role and level.
Built for translation. Modular design ready for subtitling, voice-over and multiple languages.
Route to market
Proven in Scotland. Shared with the world.
A deliberate, staged roll-out — building evidence and reputation at every step, so St Margaret's becomes a recognised centre of excellence in palliative care education.
Test and prove
Launch with the hospice's own teams and Scottish partners — universities, NHS boards, care homes and social work — and measure the impact.
Scale across the four nations
Extend to NHS trusts, hospices and education providers across the UK and Ireland, mapped to each nation's frameworks.
Multilingual and global
Translated, culturally adapted pathways for health systems and institutions worldwide.
Partner with us
Help build the foundation of palliative care education — as a founding education partner.
We are inviting a small number of organisations from across the palliative care sector to support the creation of the platform through educational grants. Your support accelerates production, widens access, and puts better care within reach of patients and families sooner.
What partners receive
- Named recognitionAcknowledged as an educational supporter on the platform, at launch and in partner communications.
- Impact reportingRegular reports on reach, completion and learning gain across professions and regions.
- A place at the startFounding partner status as the platform launches in Scotland and scales internationally.
- Shared purposeA visible, lasting contribution to the quality of care people receive at the end of life.
Independent by design
All content is led and approved by the hospice's clinical and education teams.
- No editorial input or content review by sponsors
- No product, brand or promotional messaging
- Support declared openly on the platform
- Structured in line with the ABPI Code of Practice
Partnership packages are tailored to each organisation. We'd be glad to talk you through the options.
Production & learning design partner
Built with Elementary Spark — serious learning, at scale, for years.
Elementary Spark is the hospice's e-learning consultant and production partner. From professional-standards content with MDDUS to our Learning Sparks studio partnership with Arizona State University, we've produced over 2,000 e-learning pieces for leading universities, foundations and health organisations.
Jamie Smith, Creative Director
Film-maker and communications leader across business, education and creative outputs, leading the development process end to end.
Supported by a global team of educators, instructional designers, scriptwriters, animators, graphic designers, directors and a professional production crew — and partnerships with education leaders and research scientists in digital pedagogy and AI in online learning.
Better knowledge. Better care. A better journey for every patient and family.
Talk to us about becoming a founding education partner of [ Platform name ] — and helping St Margaret of Scotland Hospice take more than 75 years of palliative care expertise to the world.
OUR EDUCATION CLIENTS INCLUDE
