Nancy Preston is a Professor of Supportive and Palliative Care at the International Observatory on End of Life Care at Lancaster University where she is also the programme director for Postgraduate Studies. She gained her PhD from the Institute of Cancer Research in London. Her main area of interest is service delivery models for palliative care (supportive care for people in their last year of life) including how to integrate such care into care homes and acute hospital services. She is also interested in symptom management and has conducted Cochrane reviews on this. In addition, she has developed research in the clinical management of complex symptoms. She has expertise in the development and running of clinical trials involving patients with end of life needs, which have run at national and international levels through grants from the European Union.