Every year in May, Dying Matters and its coalition members host an Awareness Week, which gives an unparalleled opportunity to place the importance of talking about dying, death and bereavement firmly on the national agenda.
It’s Awareness Week this week and it runs from 9-15 May with the theme ‘The Big Conversation’.
Did you know that research carried out during last year’s awareness week discovered that:
- 71% of the public agree that if people in Britain felt more comfortable discussing dying, death and bereavement it would be easier to have our end of life wishes met
- Just 35% of adults said they had made a will
- Just 27% had let someone know their funeral wishes
- Just 7% had written down wishes or preferences about the care they would want if they couldn’t make decisions
- Just 18% had asked a family member about their end of life wishes
Our colleagues at Dorset Macmillan Advocacy are supporting Dying Matters week. Their display stand is promoting Advance Care Planning and the Cancer Older People and Advocacy service in Christchurch library all week.
You can join in The Big Conversation by looking out for and attending local events.
- You can also follow Dying Matters on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest.
- You can Tweet about it, always including the hashtag #BigConversation.
- You can also join in the #BigConversation on Twitter. Between 1-2pm GMT every day of Awareness Week Dying Matters will be hosting a Tweetchat on a variety of topics relating to dying, death and bereavement – and they’d love you to join in. Find out more.
To find out more and see how else you can support The Big Conversation, click here
Marie McWilliams, National Development Officer, OPAAL
Older People Living with Cancer 