This webinar on Services Redesign will be chaired by Allan Kellehear (EAPC Reference Group Public Health & Palliative Care, Northumbria University, UK) and Joachim Cohen (EAPC Reference Group Public Health & Palliative Care, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium).
The speakers will be Sim Bee Hia (Singapore Hospice Council), Norhisham Bin Main (Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, Singapore) and Emma Hodges (Public Health Palliative Care UK).
Thes webinar will discuss the role of 'service redesign' as a major practice approach within public health palliative care. We will discuss how existing professional offers within formal health services, and the charitable or civic sector, can be changed/altered to become public health palliative care practices i.e. community support and participation, end-of-life literacy, and policy development. Three speakers will discuss their practice experiences with redesign services in their own organisations as examples.
Presentation by Sim Bee Hia: Advocacy as Catalyst: Scaling Compassion in Singapore
The session showcases how advocacy played a pivotal role in initiating the national Compassionate Communities Singapore movement. It explores how communities can be engaged, partnerships built across sectors and offers insights into how Singapore embarked on its journey to create a nationwide shift to support people at the end of life.
Presentation by Emma Hodges: Service Redesign in practice
This session will introduce a model of service redesign adapted from Cormac Russell's "three lanes" and share how it has practically been used in two different case studies, one a children's hospice and the other an adult social care department. The model enables online or face to face participatory approach to reorientating support building on community strengths
Date & time: Wednesday 4 March 2026, 10:00-11:30 CET
About the speakers
Ms Sim Bee Hia, Executive Director, Singapore Hospice Council
Ms Sim Bee Hia leads efforts to advocate for palliative care, foster compassionate communities, and broaden support networks for patients and families in Singapore. She works closely with healthcare professionals to enhance the delivery of palliative care services. Under her stewardship, SHC has strengthened its position as the collective voice of Singapore’s palliative care community. She oversees SHC’s strategic and operational initiatives, ensuring integrated efforts that empower individuals to live and leave well with dignity.
Dr Norhisham is the group lead for the Supportive and Palliative Care Service Line of NUHS cluster. He is also the head of Supportive Care and Palliative Medicine Division in the Department of Medicine, Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, where he is a specialist senior consultant in both Geriatric and Palliative Medicine. He is a Board Member of the Singapore Hospice Council and plays an active role in the Muslim community, collaborating with healthcare providers and social service agencies to promote and support health in the community; his current work in the community includes public education on active ageing, spiritual health in aging, palliative care and advance care planning. Dr Norhisham is concurrently senior lecturer with Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine in the National University of Singapore and faculty member of graduate programs for geriatric medicine and palliative medicine.
Dr Emma Hodges MRSPH is an experienced senior leader dedicated to improving health and care systems while tackling health inequalities wherever possible. She serves as the Development Director for Compassionate Communities UK alongside running a consultancy focused on organisational development, healthcare, equity, and diversity. Emma’s recent projects include her work with CommonAge, contributing to the Dementia in the Commonwealth Report. Her professional background spans Human Resources, Organisational Development, and leadership as a Hospice CEO. She holds a doctorate in Health Planning and Management, where her research explored the organisational factors shaping English hospices’ approaches to dementia care. Passionate about organisational institutionalism, she is particularly interested in how these structures drive or prevent change.
Allan Kellehear is the founder of the Compassionate Communities movement, which encourages society-wide involvement in supporting people who are dying, caregiving or grieving. He has advanced a public health approach that has shaped national and international policies. His work highlights the vital role of families, workplaces, schools and faith groups in end-of-life care. Currently Allan Kellehear is professor at the school of Communities and Education Northumbria University in Newcastle, UK. Before he worked internationally as university professor in Australia, Japan, England and the USA. In 2025 he has been appointed as Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the King’s Birthday Honours List for his exceptional contributions to palliative and end-of-life care. Allan is member of the steering committee of the EAPC Reference Group Public Health & Palliative Care.
Prof. Joachim Cohen is a social health scientist and a professor of the End-of-Life Care Research Group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Together with prof. Lieve Van den Block, he chairs the End-Of-Life Care research group, whilst chairing the research program public health and palliative care. He graduated in 2001 as a Master in Sociology and in 2007 as a PhD in Social Health Sciences. His research has been awarded with the Kubler Ross Award for Young Researchers and the Young Investigator Award from the European Association of Palliative Care 2010. Both prizes were awarded to him, mainly because of his large-scale population-based and population-level cross-national research on end-of-life care. Prof. Cohen has published over 150 articles in international peer reviewed journals, co-edited the Oxford University Press book: “A public health perspective on end of life care”. Joachim is chair of the EAPC Reference Group Public Health & Palliative Care, together with Libby Sallnow.