ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the research about people's preferences for end-of-life care and their concerns around dignity. The differences between what is happening and what people want, and how that affects the sense of dignity that people experience in end-of-life care, will be discussed. However, most agree that hospital, with its focus on interventional medicine, is the best place to be for high-quality end-of-life care, so this expansion of services for the dying is needed in hospices and care homes. Providing end-of-life care that preserves dignity is not an easy area of care but it is a privilege and one that can be immensely rewarding and life affirming. Dignity is one of the first things people mention when asked about the care they would like at the end of life. However, understanding what people really mean by dignity is easy because most people have a great deal of difficulty in saying what they mean.
