Background In line with national recommendations (Leadership Alliance for the Care of Dying People, 2014; National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2015), the Palliative Care Team in Stockport were tasked to provide mandatory training for all frontline staff with responsibility of caring for people in the last two weeks of life. We are keen to share lessons learnt.

Aims Training was: accessible to all acute trust staff every three years; to be included in each member of staff’s compliance matrix; multidisciplinary; focused on empathy and compassion: individualising care at the very end of life.

Methods Three sessions available.

• Three hour session for all front line staff dealing regularly with death and dying. This was delivered once a month

• One hour session for those staff not directly involved in care of the dying person

• One hour session for consultant staff not directly involved with care for the dying person.

Each session aimed to:

• Promote discussion on a good death utilising the experience of all grades of health care professionals.

• Use a mixture of group work, discussion, video

• Promote a team approach to decision making.

Results Numbers trained in 2017=547 (49 consultants, 265 nurses, 130 health care assistants, 38 clinical nurse specialists, 40 district nurses and 25 allied health care professionals).

Lessons to share Scepticism was palpable from the group at the beginning of each session but at the end the evaluations were overwhelmingly positive. Getting the training on the compliance matrix was instrumental for attendance at the session. Training a mixed group of health care professionals requires experienced facilitators but can be very rewarding to all. Requests for further training result from every session and the opportunities for supplementary sessions need to be considered. There is a significant impact on workload to the Palliative Care Team who deliver training.