Background Palliative care has historically been under-represented in undergraduate curricula. The introduction of the Medical Licensing Assessment (General Medical Council) with its particular focus on end-of-life care, increasing student numbers, and ongoing student feedback levered a short-notice opportunity to fundamentally restructure the long-standing undergraduate palliative care programme delivered by a large UK university.

Aims To construct a comprehensive, robust yet sustainable teaching programme for undergraduate students providing the foundational knowledge, skills and attitudes for high quality palliative care. This restructure aimed to harness the innovation of pandemic-era medical education yet provide equitable learning experience within the confines of wider significant logistical and capacity limitations.

Methods A 3-stage restructuring project occurred over 10 months:

• An iterative process to successfully position a week’s palliative care programme within the newly–devised rotational block curriculum.

• Building collaborative relationships with existing and new education providers to deliver the programme aspirations.

• Restructuring, updating and creation of curriculum content and delivery.

Results A transition from 3 days/year of specialist palliative care learning to a dedicated week of palliative care placement for 400 medical students has been delivered, including focused attention on communication skills and delivering end-of-life care in the acute setting. A balance between virtual learning, and face-to-face experience has been achieved. Feedback has been excellent. The role of a Specialty Lead clinician employed by the University to cultivate relationships with regional palliative care educators, and provide centralised oversight for educational delivery quality assurance, has been crucial.

Conclusion Continual development of educational methods including virtual learning (Wilcha. JMIR Med Educ. 2020;6(2):e20963) is critical to ensure doctors are prepared for emerging challenges and opportunities for delivering palliative and end-of-life care. This requires close collaboration, team-working and learning between academic institutions and wider clinical palliative care educator networks. The dedicated time and university-based role of Palliative Care Specialty lead is an important component.