End of life strategy launched

16 July 2008 10:20am

The Government is launching a new multi-million pound strategy to support people as they come to the end of their lives.

Health Secretary Alan Johnson and Care Services Minister Ivan Lewis will announce new measures to provide better support and care to those who wish to die at home.

People will be given more control over where they die and will be encouraged to make their wishes known.

More support for carers, community nurses on call 24/7 in all areas, and better training for staff are included in the 10-year strategy for England.

Mr Johnson told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "The most important objective is to ensure that people's individual needs, their priorities, their preferences for end-of-life care are identified, they are documented, they are reviewed, they are respected and acted upon wherever possible.

"That message has to go out everywhere within the NHS and that's the important starting point for everything else: if you conduct everything you do around these issues on the basis of the individual and their carer, what would they prefer, and then you draw up a care plan for them and put that into force."

He went on: "You go back to the beginning of the 20th century and people were familiar with death - many people died at home, they died of diseases at a young age.

"When the NHS came along... as a result people die in hospitals whether they want to or not, and sometimes there are issues about how they die in hospitals.

"But the big issue for us today is to give the choice to everyone."

He said the Government was putting £286 million into the project over the next three years but complained that some media were refusing to run the story because it was "too depressing for their viewers and listeners".

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