Hospice Policy on Resuscitation

The term resuscitation refers to the treatment of people who collapse suddenly due to cardiac arrest. When this happens in hospital it is usual to attempt to restart the patient's heart and to give artificial (mouth to mouth) respiration. Unfortunately, in most hospitals it has now become common practice to attempt resuscitation on all dying patients unless the patient has previously agreed that this should not be done.

When people die of natural causes such as cancer attempted resuscitation is futile and has virtually no chance of prolonging life or contributing to an improved quality of life for the patient. Our approach at the Hospice is to recognise that dying with dignity is a natural conclusion to life and we do not strive to use artificial means to simply prolong life. Therefore we do not have facilities for resuscitation at the Hospice.

However, all our treatments are aimed at improving the quality of life and we often use such procedures as blood transfusion and intravenous rehydration if they are felt to be helpful for an individual patient.

A doctor or nurse will be happy to discuss with you. Further written information is available on request.