Events

RIPEN Network North East Academic Research Forum

(Research In Palliative and End Of Life Care North East)

Event: Wednesday 7 December, 1 – 2 pm

Title: Meeting Legal Needs in Life Limiting Illness

Speaker is Colette Hawkins

Abstract: Legal needs are common in the context of life-limiting illness, affecting the person who is ill and informal carers. Since 2017, a series of research projects has explored the nature and impact of legal needs, current services and resources and opportunities to provide more timely and effective support. A large stakeholder group has been built with representation from a wide range of organisations across health, social care, advice sector, local government, VCSE, statutory bodies and legal services. We have been building a multi-agency partnership to look at a system response to legal needs, using interprofessional learning as a route to raising awareness of the issues and building connections. We have an active lived experience group and we are actively extending our partnership to engage more fully with disadvantaged communities.

Register here or email [email protected]

More about the speaker

Colette Hawkins is an Academic Palliative Medicine Consultant, based at South Tees NHS Foundation Trust in Middlesbrough. As a clinician, she became interested in the real experience of living with life-limiting illness and the issues often missed by a traditional medicalised approach. This has led onto research and a more creative approach to education using stories.

Over the past five years, she has led research to increase understanding of the nature, impact and response to legal needs in life-limiting illness. This has been supported by grants from The Legal Education Foundation, NIHR Applied Research Collaborative North East and North Cumbria and the NIHR (Palliative and End of Life Partnership). The research has revealed the prevalence of social welfare legal needs and the challenges people face accessing the right support. Responding to these needs as a more connected system is the focus of Colette’s current work, which engages a large multi-agency stakeholder group. The work is progressing towards an interprofessional learning programme which will build awareness, inclusivity, collaboration and connectivity.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colette-hawkins-a3193274/

Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Colette-Hawkins

Twitter: @ColetteYcla

Read more about this work