Life is very precious and how it comes to an end is equally so - Christa Ackroyd

I now live next door to two very keen gardeners and determined not to let the side down, I abandoned the paint brush inside and set about tackling my long narrow front garden which hadn’t been tended to for years.

In fact give or take the odd shrub and a beautiful cherry tree it was pretty much empty, save for a few struggling plants and a couple of ‘thugs’ which according to my green-fingered neighbour needed to come out if I wanted any new additions to survive.

I would say it took four weeks of hard graft to get it looking anything like.

I filled scores of empty pots brought from my last house, bought plants from local growers (that way you know they will survive a northern winter), bagged a few struggling bargains from local supermarkets and begged cuttings and advice from those living nearby who are far more expert than I.

It has been a great success, though like many gardeners I am glad to see the rain which saves me hours upon hours or watering morning and night if my newly-established garden is to stand a chance of surviving.

It has been so so satisfying and I am thrilled at the little oasis of colour I have created despite the fact I wasn’t even opening mine for show.

But you can’t let the side down can you? And it was all for a great cause. As the first visitors arrived next door I was seated admiring my handiwork reading the newspapers.

Then it struck me; here we were raising funds for the local hospice exactly one day after the assisted dying Bill had narrowly passed in the House of Commons. And the two things didn’t and don’t add up.

Those who know me know I am very liberal in my views about choice.

Live how you want to live and yes I suppose it follows die how you want to die. But regarding the right to choose to end your life, I feel very strongly that many people are still not living their best lives with terminal illness or to put it more bluntly, not dying their best deaths.

And it is all down to money. So here is the deal I will make with those who voted in favour of the Bill and a warning call to the Lords who will look at it next.

It can only be introduced if and when palliative care in this country is improved and available for all. And that I am afraid is down to cold hard cash. And some pretty joined up thinking.

There are 220 hospices in the UK supporting those with terminal illnesses. They look after more than 300,000 people per annum both in their wonderful in patient facilities and in the community.

And when you consider 500,000 die each year that is more than half.

And yes the Government has announced more cash to help with building projects which is great, but not if you can’t afford to staff them. And that is where we are.

Empty beds in brand new wings of local hospices can be found up and down the country while people are dying on trolleys in hospital corridors and it doesn’t add up.

Each year the government pays about 30 per cent of each hospice’s running costs.

Which therefore means it is up to us the public to fund the rest with the kind of charitable events such as our open gardens weekend, which is all well and good but it is not enough.

So here’s the thing, now is exactly the right time to stop relying on the coffee mornings, the jumble sales, the goodwill of local businesses and fundraisers to support those at the forefront of palliative care. Because only then can we have a complete picture on how we die.

What is it we fear about dying? It is primarily being in pain and losing control. Of being a burden on friends and family. By and large, that is what hospices are there to provide.

To manage the physical pain and the mental anguish. To provide a safe space for both patients and families.

Am I being too extreme to say if we improved the funding model the number seeking to take their own lives would be far fewer? I think not.

My mum died a beautiful death. She had suffered from dementia and Alzheimer’s and other health issues for many years and we were warned in the care home she was staying in it would be traumatic as the pneumonia took hold. It wasn’t.

In the end there was no need for the morphine drips that were on hand. Instead she died holding my hand with a smile on her face listening to our favourite music. It was perfect.

As the last note of Bring Him Home faded away (we had seen Les Misérables together), she simply stopped breathing. So peaceful. So perfect after a long struggle.

For me it was a miracle and one which took away the fear of dying if not the pain of loss.

I know for many it will not be like that. It will be traumatic for those struggling to die a quiet death and for those who love them to watch helplessly by their side.

But the hospice movement knows how to care for both as did the wonderful care home my mum was forced to go into for the last year of her life because her medical needs were deemed too great by doctors and social care staff.

So why did she have to pay when there was no alternative? The great irony is I fought and fought for funding after it was turned down. It was finally awarded just a week before her passing.

But what energy I wasted in doing so when it could have been spent with mum.

Social care in this country desperately needs an overhaul. Indeed it is the subject of a review that might take years.

Yet shouldn’t it go hand in hand with the assisted dying bill? Of course it should. The issue I have with last week’s new Bill is not that dying should not be a choice, but a complete choice. Can you be cared for in a specialist hospice or home or indeed in your own home?

Is there truly the support available for those families who are often left to deal with it themselves or have to fight for every bit of help along the way? No there isn’t.

There is also a Parliamentary commission due to report on a ten year plan for the NHS on palliative and end of life care.

Its chair has already come to the conclusion that services are at best ‘patchy’ leading to ‘unnecessary suffering’.

Wouldn’t it have made more sense to consider the Commission’s findings before the assisted dying bill came to the Commons?

It was Thomas Paine who coined the phrase in the 1700s, ‘Nothing is more certain than death and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying’.

If the Bill will let us now choose that time, let it be for the right reasons not because the painful alternative is down to not selling enough cupcakes at a fundraiser.

Life is very precious. How it ends is equally so.