Findings of the National End of Life Survey | 2023
55.7% of participants (951 of 1,706) said that their relative or friend was visited by a member of the hospice, palliative care team or other specialist palliative care service in the last two days of their life. 17.7% (n=302) said that they did not know if their relative or friend was visited by a member of the hospice, palliative care team or other specialist palliative care service in the last two days of their life. 80.0% of people (1,360 of 1,701), whose relative or friend died in a hospital, said that their relative or friend died in a single room, while 19.1% (n=324) said that their relative did not die in a single room. 38 Of 1,720 people, 1,288 (74.9%) felt that their relative or friend died in the right place, while 284 (16.5%) thought that their relative did not die in the right place. 39 Notably, 81% of those whose relative or friend died in a single hospital room said that they died in the right place, compared with 51% of those whose relative or friend did not die in a single room. 24.5% of participants (417 of 1,702) said that their relative or friend was told by a healthcare professional that they were likely to die; 819 (48.1%) said that the person was not told and 466 (27.4%) said that they did not know. While 62.6% of bereaved relatives (1,057 of 1,688) indicated that healthcare sta talked to them about what to expect when their relative or friend was dying, 29.0% (n=489) said that healthcare sta did not talk to them about what to expect. 40 76.3% of participants (572) said that a discussion about what to expect when their relative was dying would have been helpful. Figure 4.7 shows the average scores (out of 10) for questions on care provided in hospitals in the last two days of life. The highest-scoring question related to kindness and compassion from healthcare sta, with 86.4% of bereaved relatives (1,454 of 1,682) saying that their relative or friend was always treated with kindness and compassion by healthcare sta during the last two days of their life. The lowest-scoring question related to emotional needs, with 15.6% of people (156 of 1,002) saying that healthcare sta did not help and support their relative or friend with their emotional needs (for example, feeling worried, feeling anxious, feeling low). 41
38 A further two answered ‘they did not die in a healthcare setting’ and 15 answered ‘ don’t know’. 39 A further 148 respondents (8.6%) were not sure. 40 142 respondents (8.4%) selected the response option ‘not applicable – they died unexpectedly’. 42 This does not include 542 respondents who answered ‘they did not need help with this’ and 188 respondents who answered ‘don’t know’.
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