Don’t be afraid to talk to dying patients about God, NHS tells doctors and care workers
by Simon Holmes, Mailonline:
Health and care workers looking after dying people in their final days must do more to ask about spiritual beliefs, experts have said.
Spiritual wishes were only documented for one in seven people who died in hospitals in England who were able to communicate in their final days, a 2016 report found.
Now the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has urged health and care workers to do more to ensure they take into account cultural, religious or social preferences of adults in their final days.
A new quality standard from the health watchdog sets out standards of care for those aged 18 or over in their last two to three days of life.
Nice said that of the half a million deaths each year in England, three-quarters of these deaths were anticipated by medical staff.
It has set out a series of measures which should help those in their final days.
People should be given an individualised care plan and dying people, and those important to them, should be given opportunities to discuss the care they want to receive.
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