Following bereavement, poor health is more likely in carers who perceived that their support from health services was insufficient or whose family member did not die in the carer's preferred place of death
- Correspondence to Sheila Payne International Observatory on End of Life Care, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YT, UK; s.a.payne{at}lancaster.ac.uk
- Published Online First 8 June 2010
Family carers are central to the provision of palliative care for patients. It is widely recognised that they are essential to enabling patients to have a choice of place of care, especially to die at home.1 Within Europe there are estimated to be 100 million carers, whose contribution to care often exceeds the financial expenditures of their countries on formal nursing services although it is difficult to estimate exactly how many are engaged in caring for a person near the end of life.2 In the United Kingdom, Help the Hospices estimates that at any one time approximately half a million family members are providing care to a dying person.3 There is increasing evidence that they are often unprepared for the many demands …
