{"id":33126,"date":"2015-01-12T12:22:59","date_gmt":"2015-01-12T11:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=33126"},"modified":"2015-01-12T13:00:16","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T12:00:16","slug":"mike-smeeton-how-to-achieve-a-good-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2015\/01\/12\/mike-smeeton-how-to-achieve-a-good-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Smeeton: How to achieve a good death"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mike<\/a>Two nurses from our Sue Ryder Nettlebed Hospice were interviewed recently by Paddy O\u2019Connell for his Broadcasting House programme that airs on BBC Radio 4 every Sunday.<\/p>\n

The reason for the interview, which you can listen to here<\/a>, was to talk about a very topical conversation which has been taking\u00a0place following Richard Smith’s blog<\/a> in The BMJ<\/em>. His blog which says that\u00a0cancer is the best way to die has created a lot of conversation and a lot of media coverage.<\/p>\n

In our experience, it\u2019s not the condition that dictates whether someone has a \u201cgood death,\u201d but how you die that is important. Focusing on the condition inhibits personalisation and informed choice for patients and their families. Instead, we work closely to find out what the most important elements of end of life care are for them. We think that a good death is all about coordinated, personalised, and compassionate care, where the dying person and their loved ones have coordinated access to the support services that they need and want 24\/7.<\/p>\n

Research that we carried out, entitled “A time and a place,”<\/a> shows that the two main factors that are most important to people when they are dying are:<\/p>\n