People's experiences of death, dying and bereavement are only partially determined by formal health and social care services. A broad-based alliance of organisations and individuals was established in Scotland in 2011 with the aim of influencing a wider range of social, cultural and other environmental factors which impact on people's experiences towards the end of life. Called Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief (GLGDGG) this alliance has grown and developed over the past 6 years, with a current diverse membership of over 1,100. A small central resource hosted by the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care (SPPC) provides infrastructure, resources, promotion, events and advocacy for the alliance. GLGDGG's approach is primarily to engage, support and enhance the assets of communities, organisations and individuals who have the potential to improve the experience of death, dying and bereavement in Scotland. In addition to having very limited financial and staff resources the alliance has faced and responded to some other major challenges; the breadth and diversity of areas needing action; a lack of evidence to inform prioritisation and advocacy; how to operationalise theory in specific contexts; risk aversion on the part of some institutions in relation to death, dying and bereavement; how to measure change and demonstrate impact. The alliance has developed or used different frameworks for conceptualising and organising its work, but always with an emphasis on practical and adaptable approaches to action. Key successes of GLGDGG include growth in the size and diversity of the membership and the development of a portfolio of resources, activities and events. Amongst events developed is To Absent Friends, a people' festival of storytelling and remembrance which gives people across Scotland an excuse to remember, to tell stories, to celebrate and to reminisce about people who have died but who remain important to them. GLGDGG promotes the festival, encourages involvement, provides ideas and support, and organises a small number of events. However, the vast majority of the activity which takes place during the festival is conceptualised and carried out by individuals and organisations on their own initiative. GLGDGG has been successful in influencing public policies relating to death, dying and bereavement. The experience of GLGDGG suggests that: enthusiasm for action exists widely in Scottish society; local ownership is the key for local action; national infrastructure and off-the-shelf resources are valued by local actors; small resource can make a big difference to local work; national events can act as a catalyst for local action. The next phase of work is to scale up existing activities and initiatives and to base future plans on scoping work currently being undertaken.

IntroductionPublic health palliative care is a term that can be used to encompass a variety of approaches that involve working with communities to improve people's experience of death, dying and bereavement. Recently, public health palliative care approaches have gained recognition and momentum within UK health policy and palliative care services. There is general consensus that public health palliative care approaches can complement and go beyond the scope of formal service models of palliative care. However, there is no clarity about how these approaches can be undertaken in practice or how evidence can be gathered relating to their effectiveness. Here we outline a scoping review protocol that will systematically map and categorise the variety of activities and programmes that could be classified under the umbrella term ‘public health palliative care’ and highlight the impact of these activities where measured.Methods and analysisThis review will be guided by Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review methodology and incorporate insights from more recent innovations in scoping review methodology. Sensitive searches of 9 electronic databases from 1999 to 2016 will be supplemented by grey literature searches. Eligible studies will be screened independently by two reviewers using a data charting tool developed for this scoping review.Ethics and disseminationThis scoping review will undertake a secondary analysis of data already collected and does not require ethical approval. The results will facilitate better understanding of the practical application of public health approaches to palliative care, the impacts these activities can have and how to build the evidence base for this work in future. The results will be disseminated through traditional academic routes such as conferences and journals and also policy and third sector seminars.

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There is growing consensus that palliative care encompasses a ‘health promoting’ element concerned with encouraging openness about death in society so that people are aware of ways to live and support each other with death, dying and bereavement. A general societal reluctance to engage with these issues makes it harder for clinicians to initiate timely discussions with patients about their end of life care wishes.However, finding ways to educate wider society in issues relating to death and dying can be problematic in a culture where raising these issues is variously perceived as too morbid, too difficult or too sensitive to mention.This poster describes theDining with Deathmenu and some of the settings in which it has been used, exploring its potential as an experiential learning tool to enable people to become more open about discussing death and dying.TheDining with Deathconversation menu is a folded piece of A4 card, printed with three ‘courses’ of suggested conversation topics, for example ‘Cremation or burial?’; and ‘What would be in your death plan?’.The menu was first used November 2011, with 60 individuals from various organisations, who had been invited to a restaurant lunch to mark the launch ofGood Life, Good Death, Good Grief.Since then,Dining with Deathhas been used to facilitate discussions at education events for health professionals and two ‘death cafes’ atJust Festival.These events indicate the menu has potential as a learning tool: it can be used flexibly, across different types of events and different audiences; it overcomes barriers to engagement in death discussions by intriguing participants and engaging them in non-threatening conversations through which they can learn from their own and others' experience. There is potential for further evaluation and development of theDining with Deathmenu in the future.