ABSTRACT
Many families will have some prior experience of death either as individuals or as a group. These experiences may colour their expectations and prompt specific anxieties and fears depending on whether they have good or bad memories of the previous death. The family may be seeking advice, comfort, company and regular visits for reassurance, or they may wish to be alone during those last few days or hours. The patient approaches death, he or she is making an unfamiliar journey. The family often has no clear idea of what may happen or what role to play. The appropriate prognostic indicators such as rising urea and creatinine levels and low serum albumin levels should be monitored if necessary and appropriate, but it is inappropriate to carry out investigations if no action will be taken. When the team is agreed that death is inevitable, the end-of-life care package that is normally used by the team should be implemented.
