During my husband’s illness, I became aware of a number of issues that impacted the quality of his care. These involved clinicians not being aware of the needs of brain tumour patients, not giving the right care and not giving timely care. This seemed to lead from the way the service was structured and organised.

Essentially the service works to save lives, and support people with long term health conditions. This seemed to mean that once patients have a terminal diagnosis with no treatment options to prolong life, clinicians weren’t trained in how to manage their declining health.

I think that the answer to improving this neglected area is for the health service to learn from social care and to work with carers to give the best care to patients.