It is well known that the population is living longer & with continuous advances in medical assessment & treatments, patients’ care needs are becoming increasingly complex1. . This is especially true for patients with palliative diagnoses who are often receiving very extensive treatments. Currently the GP training scheme runs over 3 years however, there is no standardised palliative care training during this time

The aim of our research project was to understand the gaps in palliative care knowledge of GP trainees and whether standardised teaching sessions may improve their knowledge

We formulated an online survey that was sent out to every GP trainee in post within the West Midlands programme containing a variety of questions regarding palliative care knowledge. We analysed the results in a excel spreadsheet, with core themes identified with qualitative answers. Following this we identified the areas which the trainees felt they needed further education and developed a teaching programme to address these areas. Following the teaching session we also released an online survey evaluating the course and their knowledge.

The feedback showed that there was a lack of palliative knowledge. Collating the information we designed and produced a training day which was provided at a central hospice. The teaching was performed as a hybrid model to 149 delegates with a variety of speakers from a palliative care and GP background.

We looked at their responses both prior and after the teaching day with a 60.1% increase in perceived palliative care knowledge and 77.81% increase in confidence managing complex palliative patients.

Ideally we would also have a follow up study to see how much knowledge has been retained. Going forward and assessing the feedback we would like to expand the training to over 2 days, to allow more time and also look to expand to more trainees.