Marie Curie offers £1 million to fund vital research

Marie Curie has made £1 million available to fund research to improve care for people with terminal illnesses and their families.

The funding is part of the annual Marie Curie Research Programme, which was established in 2010 to help address gaps in research funding and support the wider palliative care community. The programme has distributed over £3.8 million pounds to date.

The deadline for outline applications is 16 January 2015.

Marie Curie is inviting outline applications in three areas:

1. Communication around terminal illness, prognosis and dying
 
Knowledge of the prognosis and the time left is important for patients and carers in the early stages after the diagnosis of a terminal illness as well as at the time closer to death. However, prognostic information is often unreliable and whilst prognosis is difficult, better communication with patients, carers and families is needed around risk and uncertainty in the disease trajectory. Training for health care professionals often centres on how to talk to the patient, but carers and families value information and require support.

Marie Curie is inviting research proposals to develop best practice models and evaluate their effectiveness in this area. Proposals should aim to improve communication of health care professionals with patients, but also specifically with carers and families with due attention to the challenge of social and cultural diversity inherent to these groups. The aim of these studies should be to promote evidence-based innovation and excellence but above all to help patients with a terminal illness and their carers and families cope with the inevitable uncertainty that a terminal diagnosis brings with it and/or increase their knowledge of the general characteristics that might be encountered in each phase of the illness leading to and including death and its impact.

2. Bereavement

Marie Curie is inviting research projects addressing the effectiveness (including cost-effectiveness) of bereavement interventions.
We are particularly interested in studies that address the content and timing of interventions, and those that explore different outcomes for different people, including bereaved children and young people or people at risk of intense and long-lasting (complicated) grief.

3. Symptom control

There are gaps in evidence for the management of symptoms at the end of life and in terminal illness, including cancer as well as non-cancer conditions such as advanced dementia, Parkinson’s disease or Motor Neurone Disease.

We invite proposals addressing any symptom, but are particularly interested in applications addressing:

• Gastrointestinal symptoms, including but not limited to dysphagia, nausea, vomiting, salivating and drooling, constipation and incontinence
• Respiratory symptoms, including but not limited to cough, breathlessness, excess secretions and noisy breathing
• Psychological and Neurological symptoms, including but not limited to anxiety, depression and delirium

Dr Bill Noble, Marie Curie’s Medical Director, said:
“This new call reflects the real challenges facing those with a terminal illness and the health care professionals who support them.  We are committed to doubling our research programme and this annual call is a key component.”

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