GP promotes website to help bereaved

02 March 2009

A Wiltshire GP was so impressed by a website to help people understand what they need to do to plan for death he became its unpaid medical adviser.

Photograph: istockphoto/Jeffrey Smith

Salisbury’s Dr Mark Morgan said of the Lastingpost site: ‘One thing about being a doctor, whether in general practice like me or in a hospital, that never gets much easier is telling a patient that the test results aren’t as good as they might be – and then fielding the inevitable: ‘Give it to me straight, doc, how long have I got?’

‘Once they have begun to absorb the bad news – or even in expectation of it – most patients want to deal with all sorts of practical questions, from updating their will to what they’d like played at the funeral.

‘Many doctors will therefore welcome – as I did - the new website www.lastingpost.com. It is a free resource to point patients at that can be of real help to them. There is also help aimed at those left behind, of both a practical and supportive nature. In fact, I was so impressed that I have become its – unpaid, I hasten to add – medical adviser.’

Lastingpost was brought into being when one of the founders lost her mother from Alzheimer’s and a brother, a cardiologist, from a stroke, in quick succession. Its aim is to encourage individuals and families to plan for and deal with death and bereavement in a practical yet sensitive way – and to encourage the professions and businesses concerned to bring it to patients’, clients’ and customers’ attention.

neil.durham@haymarket.com