Greater choice for dying moments

Wednesday, 16 July 2008 12:00 AM

Alan Johnson has unveiled a ten-year strategy to give people at the end of their lives more choice about where they die.

The £268 million scheme will ensure that community nursing services are available 24 hours a day so that more people can be cared for and die at home if they wish.

Health and social care professionals will be trained to assess the needs of patients and carers and to provide the best possible quality care.

The government will also encourage primary care trusts and hospices to work together to develop specialist services in the community.

"People coming to the end of their lives and their loved ones deserve high quality, compassionate and dignified care, on their own terms. This strategy will help make that happen," said the health secretary.

"We have already made £40 million available to hospices to improve environments and provide greater dignity for patients, and we recently invested £4.5 million to help build a Marie Curie state of the art hospice in the West Midlands.

"Now this increased funding will continue momentum for improvement and help make sure that everyone gets access to high quality palliative care and has choice about where that care takes place."

Shadow minister for health Stephen O'Brien said the strategy was a missed opportunity.

"Helping people to have the choice to die at home, if they wish, is an important step, but the government seems to have sidelined the wonderful contribution hospices make to end of life care.

"Everyone should be given the chance to die well at the end of their life, with the medical, emotional and spiritual care they and their family and friends need. Sadly, today's announcement does too little to bring that goal closer."

But the strategy was welcomed by Help the Aged, which said that the need to secure dignity in dying is of "critical importance for older people and those who care for them".

"For far too long, there has been a presumption that death should be at the convenience of the system, as opposed to respecting the individual wishes of those who are approaching their final days," commented Paul Cann, director of policy at Help the Aged.

"One area which requires particular focus is in the management of pain - Help the Aged continues to hear too many cases of older people left to face death without effective pain management. We hope that this will be a major focus within this strategy.

"All in all, this announcement today is a positive step. The challenge now is for Alan Johnson to turn his fine words into real action that secures genuine dignity in dying for all older people."

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