Understanding the dying person's perspective

To understand the patient's perspective, it is important to look at their meaning of life, which is better understood as a construct, flexible enough to vary with each person, tribe, culture,...

The Queen dies: lessons beyond palliative care

Whether expected or not, death often provokes grief in those left behind. Grief is a normal reaction to a painful loss; in this case, it is the family of the Queen who will inevitably experience it...

Progress in palliative care: serious illness conversations for community nurses

Uncertainty, COVID-19, dignity and palliative care

It is clear that a number of factors are at play when achieving dignity in dying and death, and these can differ with people. However, there are common factors associated with dignity, such as:...

Equality, diversity and inclusive leadership in palliative care

‘For a report like this to have the impact intended, it needs to speak to the community it affects.’ .

Being the asset in palliative care

Community nurses (CN) in charge of providing palliative and end of life care are central to the quality of care provided, and by extension, the dignity in death afforded to these people. When viewed...

Incontinence in palliative care: assessment to promote dignity

UI has a stigma and can cause an individual to hide symptoms and avoid seeking appropriate help (Payne, 2017; Smith et al, 2019), often causing a communication barrier with the DN. Incontinence can...

Thinking out loud: what you can do before you die

What can I do to prepare for death? .

Storytelling in palliative care

‘… you think about things that you haven't thought about in a long time, and that gives you some pleasure … you can pass them onto future generations of the family.’ .

Reflecting on caring and death anxiety during the pandemic

It is important to make the point that death is the extinction of life. Therefore, we can say that, inevitably, death is a primordial and primary source of anxiety experienced when we care, as most...

Achieving equity of access to palliative care

While this column is written for UK community nurses, issues of inequity are a global problem (Reimer-Kirkham et al, 2016; Hunt et al, 2019); therefore, we should look for a global solution, working...

Back to basics: communication in palliative care

The skill of maintaining silence with patients involves the use of purposeful silent periods to enable the patient to divulge more information about their emotional state. Although these periods of...