YP Comment: Dying deserve better than this

SO much for NHS founding father Aneurin Bevan's vision of '˜cradle to grave' care. Despite hospital staff performing miracles to uphold standards, it is distressing, dispiriting and demoralising to learn that two-thirds of nurses feel they have insufficient time to give dying patients high-quality care.

Despite hospital staff performing miracles to uphold standards, it is distressing, dispiriting and demoralising to learn that two-thirds of nurses feel they have insufficient time to give dying patients high-quality care.

This is nursing. This is their chosen vocation – to nurse the sick, and to provide them with dignity and comfort, as their lives draw to a close. If they can’t do so, the fault does not rest with the nurses – blame must be attached to those politicians and senior NHS managers who have not invested in their staff and they should be ashamed that it has reached this point.

A defining test of a civilised society is how it treats its elderly and vulnerable. With the hospice movement dependent on the benevolence of wellwishers, and care policy appearing to lurch from one crisis to another, those who can influence such matters need to remember that dignity in death is not an optional extra. It is a human right.