11 September 2026
They start with a mouse
English primary schools must now teach that grief is a natural response to bereavement. Child Bereavement UK’s youngest lessons begin with a picture book about a dead pet.
Blog
10 September 2026
The dresses were still there
After Tracey Palmer died at St Teresa’s Hospice, her family sold the pre-loved clothes from her online shop. A Catterick village hall raised almost £2,000.
9 September 2026
They wanted to bury him near home
Fifteen years ago Hina Bokhari struggled to bury her father near their Merton home. This week the Lords consider whether councils must plan for graves.
8 September 2026
She was happy to be here
Pauline O’Neill’s mother settled as soon as she reached the Macmillan Unit in Antrim. This week an all-island campaign is trying to tell people that palliative care is not only the last days.
7 September 2026
The care plan in his pocket
An older man carried his paper care plan so staff would not treat him against his wishes. More than half the nurses in a Marie Curie poll have given end-of-life care in a corridor.
6 September 2026
The bench that looks like an open book
Julia Stafford painted 391 names onto a book-shaped bench for St Oswald’s Hospice. It sits in Newcastle Cathedral until Monday 14 September, then it goes to Gosforth.
5 September 2026
You feel intertwined with the hospice
Tania Rahman’s family will walk Raphael Park on Sunday for Saint Francis Hospice, in memory of Dr Muhammad Rahman. They already remember him all the time.
4 September 2026
The things a will never mentions
On Monday a week of films asks how you would like to be remembered. The solicitor still will not write down the haircut.
3 September 2026
My wife is always in my memory
Smudge Smith, 94, has already walked a hundred miles for Severn Hospice. He does not do it to remember Margaret. He already does.
2 September 2026
The garden that took thirteen years
On Monday Riga opened a remembrance garden for 54 people killed when a supermarket roof fell in. Relatives had waited since 2013.
1 September 2026
The first wedding the hospice had ever held
Last year a social worker at Our Lady’s Hospice in Wicklow arranged a wedding for Antoinette and Damien Coakley. It was the first the centre had ever held.
31 August 2026
A talking photo book on a cancer ward
Tameside and Glossop is the first NHS trust in the country to offer cancer patients a digital book that speaks in their own voice. The recording is of a person who was in the room.
30 August 2026
The first palliative nurse they met was in A&E
Marie Curie has put specialist nurses inside a north London emergency department. In six months they saw 280 people. For 73 per cent, it was the first contact with palliative care.
29 August 2026
Who looks after a TikTok when you die
Researchers found a new TikTok setting this week: name someone to keep the account, or tell the app to delete it. The company still has to be told you have died.
28 August 2026
The hospice that paused its day room
The Shakespeare Hospice is rated outstanding. NHS funding covers about 12 per cent of it. Channel 4 has just put a national number on the rest.
26 August 2026
A letter nobody will open
White post boxes have gone up in Cheshire East cemeteries for letters to the dead. Nobody opens them. That is the design.