Jewish Care encourages ‘honest and compassionate’ conversations about end-oflife wishes
JEWISH CARE is encouraging people who are approaching the end of their lives to have "honest and compassionate” conversations with loved ones about what is important to them and how they wish to be cared for.
These conversations are key to ensuring that relatives, friends and carers know what directives and preferences a person has at the end of their life if they are no longer able to express them, according to Jewish Care’s social work and community support team.
The message is being conveyed ahead of national Dying Matters Awareness Week, which takes place between May 13 and May 19.
Paula Plaskow, Jewish Care’s end of life and palliative care lead, said: “We want to ensure that individuals have the best holistic support at the end of life, and this comes from having compassionate conversations, so each person can talk about what matters most to them and make advanced care plans to enable us, as care providers and as family and friends, to honour their preferences and choices.”
Plaskow added that their partnerships with hospices across London and the south east were vital in this effort, and that a good endof life-experience helps relatives grieve well afterwards,
“in the knowledge
People can say what matters to them at the end of their life
that the person they loved was cared for and their wishes were honoured”.
North London Hospice said they were “proud” to work alongside their partners in the Jewish community to provide “the best of life at the end of life”.
A spokesperson for the hospice said: “Our specialist palliative care teams ask not: ‘What is the matter?’ but ‘What matters to you?’ It is in this spirit that we provide support for patients across our community, including helping to fulfil their wishes around their preferred place of death.”
An advanced care plan is a document that can be accessed online via the Jewish Care website. It outlines ways in which future care, treatment choices and preferences can be discussed with chosen trusted people.
Questions include where someone would like to be cared for, whom they
would like with them and if there is any particular music they would like to be played or prayers recited at the end of their life.