Ed Straw is a writer on systems of government and their radical overhaul. He is a visiting fellow at the Open University in the Applied Systems Thinking in Practice group. He was a consulting partner at PwC for 20 years, chair of Relate, and chair of Demos, and government adviser.

Julian Abel became a consultant in palliative care 2001, working initially at a district general hospital and a hospice. Over the last 10 years he has become increasingly involved in finding ways of building compassionate communities around people as they reach the end of life

Julian was one of the leads with Frome Medical Practice in Somerset, developing a new model of primary care combined with compassionate communities. The health outcomes of this model have been dramatic. To read more click here

Along with Professor Kellehear and Catherine Millington-Sanders, he has formed Compassionate Communities UK. The charity has been formed to develop the broader roll out of ‘Compassionate Communities’ in both primary care and end-of-life care. Projects are underway in multiple areas in the UK, and several international projects are under development.

Catherine Millington-Sanders is the Lead GP for End of Life for the Royal College of General Practice and GP representative for Marie Curie. As well as being a practising GP, she is a commissioner for end of life for Kingston Clinical Commissioning Group. She is End of Life Care Clinical Lead for the South West London Sustainability and Transformation Plan with longstanding experience of developing and embedding strategy for end of life care regional plans.

Chief Executive Officer of Murray Hall Community Trust, which is a community development organisation supporting children, families, young people and older adults with a range of different services from early years to end of life. Manjula has over 30 years background in community development. Manjula has recently completed her PhD in Compassionate Communities with Warwick University and has been at the forefront of taking this approach forward in the UK. 

Steve Crabb is an independent chair, consultant and writer who specialises in improving services for people in vulnerable circumstances.

He has worked for a number of national health charities, including the Alzheimer’s Society and the British Lung Foundation, and is a former trustee of the Royal College of General Practitioners. He was responsible for producing national guidance on being dementia-friendly for energy, water and telecoms companies and has played a leading role in improving support for bereaved people.

With nearly twenty years of experience in healthcare,  Emma has been involved in many areas of service and workforce redesign.  She has been involved in Palliative and End of Life Care for 12 years, 7 as a Hospice CEO. She developed a keen interest in issues contributing to deprivation and inequality after working with North Staffordshire Regeneration Zone several years ago.  Emma’s doctoral thesis completed in 2019 was “A mixed methods study exploring organisational factors influencing the development of services for people with dementia in English Hospices”.  She has a particular interest in social movement and organisational institutionalism theories and how these can contribute to changing the relationships between people and institutions.