Our new St Luke’s Wilkes Institute, named after St Luke’s Hospice founder, Eric Wilkes, will build on our culture of excellence and expand our research and training ambitions. The Wilkes Institute will focus on three key areas: research and innovation at a local, national and international level; internal training of our existing workforce, and external workforce development as a dedicated provider of training impacting on palliative care locally, regionally and beyond.

Eric Wilkes originally trained as a general practitioner, before becoming a key figure in the national and international hospice movement, opening the St Luke’s Hospice you know today, as the first modern hospice unit outside of London and the first day hospice unit.

We’re passionate about continuing Eric Wilke’s mission to improve hospice care and people's experience at end of life. One of the key ways we will do this is by participating and leading on research, to obtain evidence to directly impact and improve the care and facilities we provide.

Alongside this, we are committed to sharing our expertise more widely. Through new courses and education programmes, we will pass on what we have learnt to health and social care professionals, helping to raise standards of palliative and end of life care far beyond St Luke’s.