David Blum is a Marie Curie PhD Training Fellow in EUROIMPACT and his research aims to study how different care improvement programmes operate and how they improve palliative care in terms of enhancing symptom assessment and symptom control. Programmes to be studied include but are not limited to: a computerized clinical decision support tool developed for the treatment of cancer pain and cancer related symptoms; computerized symptom assessment ie using modern computer technology to allow more accurate information about symptoms (pain, cachexia, depression) accommodating to patients level of functioning (as part of the European Palliative Care Research Collaborative); data from the Palliative Outcome Scale (POS) and related instruments, and data from interrRAI Long Term Care Facility, a comprehensive standardized instrument for evaluating needs and preferences at the end of life. David works at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Pain and Palliation Research Group, Trondheim, Norway and will travel to King’s College London, UK, for 6 months.