“You matter because you are you and you matter to the end of your life,” said the late Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the hospice movement that challenged the taboos around death and dying and who pioneered the importance of palliative care. While progress has been made that gives practical meaning to her words, we learned again last week that a good end is still denied to too many. This is especially the case if they are homeless, come from an ethnic minority or have illnesses such as heart disease or dementia. On Friday, the watchdog, the Care Quality Commission published a report on the end-of-life care delivered in 105 hospitals, inspected since November.
The results are disturbing. In nearly half the hospitals, the report concluded, the dying are at risk of harm or unnecessary suffering. Only four hospitals provided “outstanding” care. The commission said that in some hospitals…
