In 2018, the UK professional membership body The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) led a project for doctors on Talking about Dying – How to begin honest conversations about what lies ahead.

It is wonderfully inspiring when someone finds the time, energy, wisdom and inspiration to bring about a change that helps so many in crisis.

Dame Cicely Saunders had a young close friend dying of cancer and was very distressed by all he was going through. She determined to draw on her nursing and social care experience to set up places to train staff to care for those, like her friend, for whom there was no cure or helpful treatment, and who were facing potentially increasing pain of body, mind and spirit.

As a result, St Christopher’s Hospice was founded.

100,000 people who could benefit from palliative care die without receiving it. There’s a clear socio economic gradient to this.

What a lovely way to die: at home, surrounded by her family, quickly and easily, without hospitalization, a peaceful slipping away into the everlasting arms of her heavenly Father, hers and ours.