Professor Keri Thomas is National Clinical Lead for The Gold Standards Framework Centre, based in the West Midlands, which focuses on developing training and resources to enable generalist frontline staff to provide top quality care for all people nearing the end of life in all settings. She is Clinical Champion in End of Life Care for the Royal College of General Practitioners, and Chair of the English and UK College Working groups on End of life Care. She is Hon. Professor of End of Life Care at University of Birmingham and Founder and Clinical Advisor to the newly developed charity Omega, the National Association for End of Life Care. She is a founder Board member of the new International Society for Advance Care Planning and End of Life Care. As former National Clinical Lead for Palliative Care (Generalist) in the Department of Health’s End of Life Care Programme (05-08), and previously with the Cancer Services Collaborative (03-05), she has been involved in various national strategic and policy groups, supporting the work of the National DH End of Life Care Strategy in England

As a practicing GP working in hospices for over 24 years, and a Macmillan GP for 6 years, she was the originator of the Gold Standards Framework (GSF) for primary care in 2001, in care homes in 2004, and in acute hospitals in 2008, and continues to lead the work of the National GSF Centre in this country and abroad. GSF is extensively used by the majority of GP practices at Foundation Level in the UK, now moving on to Next Stage GSF and the new Quality Improvement Training Programme: almost 1500 care homes have undertaken the adapted GSF for Care Homes Training Programme and up to 100 accredited per year, and 16 pilot sites are involved in Phase 1 of the GSF Acute Hospitals Programme. In addition there are several new adapted GSF programmes and courses for other settings and international partner projects developing. She is author of ‘Caring for the Dying at Home’, editor of the forthcoming OUP ‘Advance Care Planning’ book (due Dec 10) and has written and lectured extensively in the UK and abroad on community palliative care and end of life care. . Her greatest achievement, however, is as wife and mother of five children.