In this paper we present the findings from our cross-disciplinary programme exploring the future of palliative care transitions for people with life limiting conditions. The programme aimed to bring together a diverse group of cross-sector organisations, practitioners, families and people with lived experience of services, to ensure multiple voices were involved in shaping the direction of research, policy and practice of palliative care transitions.

The development of a creative and participatory design approach was a central element of the programme to stimulate productive discussion across the seminars, engagement and co-design activities. Design Innovation is an integrative discipline enabling multidisciplinary collaboration in the context of health and wellbeing to understand challenges and identify opportunities for change. To support innovation designers respond to the findings of other disciplines and sequentially integrate design premises and practices within programmes of traditional qualitative and quantitative research (French et al., 2016; Broadley et al., 2016). Aligning this approach with Jindal-Snape’s (2012, 2016) Multiple and Multi-dimensional Transitions model to the study of transitions, we were able to respond to challenges by making the invisible transitions and challenges in care tangible and supporting participants towards co-creating preferable visions of future palliative care transitions.

The resulting outputs will benefit a diverse range of audiences and prioritise actions for research, policy and practice. In this paper we reflect on the way in which we translate the knowledge and insight generated through a collaborative approach to impact wider practices by enabling tangible actions.