New Head of Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department

The University of College London (UCL) Division of Psychiatry and Marie Curie are delighted to welcome Dr Libby Sallnow as the new Head of Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department. Dr Sallnow previously served as an honorary senior clinical lecturer for the department and will be taking on the role following the retirement of Professor Paddy Stone.

Dr Libby Sallnow is a palliative medicine consultant and academic. She has helped lead and develop the fields of new public health approaches to end-of-life care, compassionate communities, and social approaches to death, dying and loss over the past two decades in the UK and internationally.

Alongside her role with UCL Division of Psychiatry, Dr Sallnow is an Honorary Consultant at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Palliative Care in Kerala, India, a guest professor in the End-of-Life Care Research Group at the Vrije Universtieit Brussel (VUB) in Belgium and the first author of the Lancet Commission on the Value of Death: bringing death back into life (2022). She works as a community-based palliative medicine consultant covering the London boroughs of Camden and Islington as part of Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL).

Dr Sallnow described her excitement about her new role and to the new opportunities it provides:
Death, dying, and grieving are universal events that happen to us all and I'm interested in building interdisciplinary approaches to understand how best we can support people at these times. The answers to this do not sit only within clinical palliative care services.
UCL has a strong tradition of high-quality interdisciplinary work and is an ideal place to situate this research. Marie Curie, as the leading charity for end-of-life care in the UK, is a strong partner to take this work forward and has funded much of the important research taking place on death, dying, and bereavement.

Director of Research and Policy at Marie Curie, Dr Sam Royston said:
We are delighted that Dr Libby Sallnow is joining us as the new Director of the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department at UCL. Libby will bring outstanding expertise and leadership to the department – particularly through building on her internationally recognised research in developing public health approaches to end of life care and compassionate communities. Marie Curie is very much looking forward to working together with Libby and the department to deliver research which makes a real difference to the lives of people affected by dying, death and bereavement.

About Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department at UCL

The Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department was started in 1999. Within that time the department grew from 3 original staff to 27 in 2024, comprising academic staff, research staff, professional services, PhD students and honorary staff. In 2002 the department moved to become part of the Academic Department of Psychiatry at Royal Free Hospital, before the department was relocated to UCL.

The mission of the department is to help people living with a terminal illness, and their families, to make the most of the time they have together, by advancing knowledge on best care by delivering and disseminating world class research.

I am keen to build on the existing strengths and reputation of the department and build strong partnerships and collaborations nationally and internationally said Dr Sallnow. There are many models of care and support globally that we can learn from. Asking critical questions about what dying, caring, or grieving well means for different people, communities or societies are essential questions for us to be asking today.

Dr Sallnow is taking on the role from April 2024 following the retirement of Professor Paddy Stone.

Professor Paddy Stone is a medical consultant and a clinical academic in palliative medicine. In April 2014, Professor Stone became the first Marie Curie funded Professor to lead the department and the first Marie Curie Chair in palliative and end-of-life care at UCL. During his tenure, the department has been awarded over £13m in peer reviewed research grant income from funders such as National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Marie Curie and the Alzheimer's Society. Paddy was the Chief Investigator on the NIHR-funded Prognosis in Palliative care Study (PiPS2) which validated the PiPS2 prognostic algorithm and other prognostic models and were instrumental in informing the recently published European Society of Medical Oncology prognostic guidelines for patients with advanced cancer. His prognostic work also influenced Marie Curie's "Scrap the six month" campaign which led to easier access for benefits to patients who are terminally ill.

Head of the Division of Psychiatry at UCL, Glyn Lewis says:
Libby brings a wealth of clinical and academic skills in palliative care and has an ambitious vision for future research in the department, and across divisions and departments at UCL. We look forward to welcoming her and seeing this important research develop.

The UCL Division of Psychiatry wishes Professor Stone all the best in his retirement and thanks him for his excellent service as Head of Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department, as well as wishing Dr Sallnow the best of luck for her tenure in the role.

Marie Curie thanks Professor Stone for his effective leadership of the Department and for building the future capacity of palliative and end of life care research, through the development of early and mid-stage researchers. Marie Curie held a tribute session to Professor Stone at their recent Annual Research Conference, with presentations from former and current colleagues as well as Professor Stone himself, which is available to view at www.mariecurie.org.uk/research/annual-research-conference.