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End of Life Decision Making a Personal Perspective by Mike Stone July 2016

mike stone 05/06/17 Dignity Champions forum

I came across the PDF when checking back to see what I had written during the last year or two: this one was well-constructed by my standards (numbered pages, etc) and it says when I wrote it (summer 2016).

It is another relatively comprehensive piece about EoL/MCA, but I cannot summarise it easily: instead I suggest that if you are vaguely interested, read the first couple of pages, and form your own opinion about whether to read the rest.

On page 4 I embark on a section titled ‘THE PROBLEMS WHICH NEED TO BE SORTED OUT’, and I list a number of 'issues with the MCA and end-of-life behaviour' which in my opinion must be 'sorted out' if EoL behaviour is to be improved.

This is what I wrote in CONCLUSION at the end of the PDF (correcting the ‘perpsectives’ typo I’ve just noticed):

There needs to be both a 'tidying up' of some legal issues, but also a much more
co-operative attitude between the family and friends on the lay side, and
the doctors, nurses and other clinicians on the professional side, if the support
of dying patients is to be improved. We need to arrive at a situation where
there is more 'mutual trust', more 'consensus', and more 'perspective-balance'
within behaviour.

And we all – patients, doctors, family, friends, nurses, paramedics, etc – need
to be talking to each other, so that we can better understand the issues which
need to be addressed: without that 'talking to each other' you end up with 'silo
perspectives and silo thinking'.

I have no idea if anybody will read this, or if anybody does read it, whether it
will be 'at all useful'. But I say to anyone trying to improve end-of-life
behaviour, 'well done',

Mike Stone July 2016


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mike stone 22/06/17

I have discovered that the link to the summary written by Niall Fry of the MCA ‘listening Event’ which took place early in 2016, seems to no longer work (it did work when I wrote I my PDF).

It was an excellent summary of the problems with ‘implementation of the Mental Capacity Act’, it is not very long to read, and instead of working out ‘where [online] it has moved to’ I am attaching the Summary Note here. I feel sure that the problems described by Niall, still exist.

Just to clarify something which might be a little confusing. It was Niall Fry who wrote the note (in fact, he sent it to me by e-mail just after he had finished it), but it was almost the final thing he did before he left the Department of Health: that is why the contact at the end of the note is for Oliver Homewood, not Niall.


Associated files and links: