End of life planning

Friends at the End has provided compassionate help to hundreds of people through to the end of life. We have resources to help you plan a good death, including talking to friends and family, talking to your doctors, and preparing yourself emotionally.

We can also provide practical information and advice on:

• Advance Care Planning
  Advance Care Planning is making decisions about the healthcare you do or do not want at the end of your life. This involves talking to your family, friends, and health or social care professionals you see regularly.
• Advance Directives
  An Advance Directive is a formal document that lets you refuse life-prolonging medical treatments even if you can’t refuse them at the time. For example, because you are unconscious following a stroke, heart attack or car crash.
• Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Order (DNACPR)
  A DNACPR is a legal document that tells any medical team not to attempt CPR in the event of cardiac arrest or heart attack.
• Power of Attorney
  A Power of attorney is a legal document that let you appoint one or more people to help you make decisions or to make decisions on your behalf. This gives you more control over what happens to you if you have an accident or an illness and can’t make your own decisions.
• Services and support towards the end of life
  In Scotland anyone aged 65 or over is entitled to free personal care if assessed as needing it. Free nursing care is available to anyone of any age assessed as requiring it. You are entitled to a broad range of support, not just medical care, at the end of life.

If you have any questions or would like to speak to somebody for help and advice, you can call us on 0131 385 8763 or email info@fate.scot.

Assisted dying and euthanasia

 Currently, neither assisted dying nor euthanasia are legal in Scotland, and Friends at the End supports people to have a good death within the existing law. We also advocate for the legalisation of assisted dying, where a terminally ill person takes a life ending medication themselves. We do not advocate for euthanasia, where someone else, usually a doctor, responds to a patient’s request to deliberately end their life, usually by administering the medication to them. The only exception to this is where the person is unable to self-ingest. To find out more, see Assisted Dying.

Further information and support

Other organisations who can help you and those around you:

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“To keep someone alive against their wishes is the ultimate indignity.”
– Stephen Hawking

Case Studies

Read more about the support we have provided to help affect change.