We are deeply saddened by the unexpected loss of our EUPCA-Alumni Dr. Juan-Pablo Leiva, announced last week by our colleagues at SECPAL. On behalf of our entire team and the EUPCA family we woud like to offer our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, patients and all who knew him.

The following text is a translation of the SECPAL statement:

The Spanish Society for Palliative Care regrets the death of its president, Dr. Juan Pablo Leiva.
We regret to announce the unexpected death of Dr. Juan Pablo Leiva, President of the Spanish Society of Palliative Care (SECPAL) and the SECPAL Foundation, and we convey our deepest condolences and warm embrace to his family and all his loved ones, whom we accompany in their grief.
Dr. Leiva, a specialist in Family and Community Medicine and a pioneer in the development of renal palliative care in Spain, worked as a palliative physician at the Santa Marina Hospital in Bilbao (Osakidetza). He assumed the presidency of SECPAL in February 2021, a challenge he faced “with gratitude and humility” and which has led him to undertake a tireless struggle to advance towards the full development of palliative care, which he considered “the strategic key to the humanisation of health”.
His firm commitment to consensus and collaboration has led him to establish numerous strategic alliances with scientific societies, associations, foundations, universities and other organisations, with the aim of promoting a broad social movement in defence of comprehensive and quality end-of-life care as a universal right.
After hearing the sad news of his passing, the SECPAL Board of Directors and the entire palliative care community would like to express their gratitude for the dedication and enthusiasm of Dr. Juan Pablo Leiva in promoting the work of our scientific society through a multitude of innovative projects and initiatives with which he sought to challenge and involve all social agents in what he considered “a historic moment” for the development of palliative care.

On July 5th , the virtual handover of the DHP Foundation Award (2nd place) by DHPV Chairman Prof. Dr. Winfried Hardinghaus to Prof. Dr. Raymond Voltz, Department for Palliative Medicine UK Cologne, and the EUPCA team took place. We are happy and proud. It was wonderful that some of our international partners participated in the online award ceremony. Thanks to all for the support.

Everything is unpacked and sorted back again… time to share some of our favorite impressions and memories from last week: what a great experience we had with European Association for Palliative Care – EAPC Vzw at the #EAPC2023 18th World Congress @De Doelen Rotterdam:

SANAD Hospice Lebanon winning our leadership award

Our very own Zuzana Kremenova winning the Rosalind Franklin Award for her EUPCA project paper

Raymond Voltz’s plenary session on Wishes to Hasten Death: Implications to Palliative Care

Our EAPC Taskforce Session on EUPCA success stories and leadership in crisis

…thank you so much for all the inspirational input, discussions and get togethers – it has been good to see you face to face again :)

Finally the 18th EAPC World Congress has started and we are looking forward to meet you, to talk about our new International Master for Leadership in Palliative Care. Please check also our leadership programme. See you in a bit! :)

We are happy to announce our leadership award winner 2023 and congratulate SANAD Hospice Lebanon on their excellent “Capacity and Model Building Program” which was rewarded with this year’s award.

The program’s aim is to support and enable leaders in palliative care and their institutions to create their own palliative care service programs and improving the palliative care knowledge and skills of healthcare professionals from diverse backgrounds.

The award will be presented during the European Association for Palliative Care – EAPC Vzw Congress in Rotterdam, 15 -17 June, 2023.

Do you run an excellent leadership programme that recognises excellence & promotes leadership as an integral part of palliativecare? In that case we are looking forward to your application for our 4th Award for Palliative Care Leadership Programmes! For further information, please check our full announcement.

Marius Ciurlionis (Vilnius, Lithuania) talks about the role of leadership during the pandemic from the perspective of the Ministry of Health

Dr Zuzana Křemenová (Prague, Czech Republic) presents her leadership story during the pandemic in the Czech Republic

Dr Georg Bollig (Denmark) on the influences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the development of Last Aid International and Last Aid Courses for the public.

On Tuesday, October 26th 2021, Dr. Gerrit Frerich, EUPCA Coordinator from the University Hospital Cologne, held a presentation at the 14th annual conference of the Spanish Society for Palliative Care (SECPAL). This conference gathers palliative care (henceforth: PC) experts from Spain and beyond to present on recent developments in the field, showcase their ideas, and help drive forward PC supply.

As coordinator of a PC leadership curriculum, Dr. Frerich talked about Leadership and Leadership Education in Palliative Care. Coming from a distinguished German hospital, he first talked about the status quo in Germany with a special focus on the national Hospice and PC act which is unique to Germany. Introduced in 2015, it has produced a variety of favourable outcomes for national palliative and hospice care. He then contrasted the concepts of leadership vs. management, and presented different leadership styles and frameworks that can be found in a PC environment, such as shared leadership or charismatic leadership, and their respective benefits and limitations. Furthermore, he presented the first brand new outcomes from the EAPC Leadership Task Force which is responsible for compiling a list of international PC leadership programmes, a list of international PC leadership experts, and for establishing a consensus on recommendations on core competencies in PC leadership. Among other results, they found out that teamwork ist he most important skillset for a leader, and that PC leaders need to embrace the holistic PC approach. Further results will help to make recommendations on contents and didactics of PC leadership education.

Finally, he put the spotlight of some of the aforementioned PC leadership curricula: a joint PC MSc Programme from three universities in Austria, a PC Nurse Fellowship programme at Makere University in Uganda, a Strategic Leadership Programme by Hospice UK and the Westscott Group, a Fellowship in PC programme at St. Christopher’s Hospice in the UK, and finally the International MSc Leadership in Palliative Care. This programme is hosted by 5 different renowned institutions across Europe and facilitated in cooperation with EUPCA, and has trained more than 80 participants in PC leaderhsip since ist establishment in 2013.