The National Bereavement Survey, commissioned by the Department of Health, makes interesting reading.

Around 22,000 people responded to the first survey to measure care leading up to death – published by the Office for National Statistics.

The most striking, though not surprising, finding is that for those who expressed a preference, the majority (71 per cent) preferred to die at home, although most people died in hospital (53 per cent).

People’s reluctance to die in hospital, is reflected in the findings that hospitals, where most died, had the lowest ratings for caring for the dying with dignity and respect.

Only 30 per cent of people who died in hospital were given a choice about where they died, said relatives, compared to two-thirds of those who died in a hospice.

Sarah Wootton, Chief Executive of Dignity in Dying, made a key observation on the findings: “The end of life care which needs more work and investment is the involvement of patients in the decisions made about their care, and the recording of those decisions.”

She is absolutely right. Too often the end of life – dying and death – is ignored because it’s awkward, distressing or embarrassing to address. So the key decisions such as level of medical intervention, where the patient wants to die, who they want present and the type of funeral are left to medics, grieving loved ones and, in the case of the funeral, the chosen funeral director.

It’s going to take time to change this attitude of denying the inevitable, although the Dying Matters coalition is doing a great job, but change it will especially when baby boomers increasingly address their mortality. This is the ‘me, me, me’ generation, and they have been well informed and self centred about most decisions they’ve made and the same will be true for their end of life choices.

My Last Song has anticipated this by providing a death plan template which encourages the patient to be the centre of decision making, but involving their doctors, carers, close family members and, if appropriate, a minister of religion.

The issues covered are medical treatment, where to die, who you want present, and more holistic items such as any music you may want to hear, pictures you want to see, fragrances you wish to smell, how you may want to be dressed or made up. It also covers the pragmatic such as planning what happens to the pet and suggesting that the funeral wishes and will are up to date.

A death plan won’t guarantee a good death, but its adoption will ensure that a far greater number of deaths are comfortable and comforting.  That’s the least we deserve, surely.

There’s a lot happening in the normally quiet death and dying space.  Much of this activity is due to the London Southbank Centre’s courageous decision to put on a week’s events centred on death, in an attempt to reduce society’s reluctance to face mortality.

Part of this will be Sandi Toksvig’s memorial lecture, which she trails with her trademark endearing and engaging wit here.

I’m also looking forward to Paul Gambaccini’s Desert Island Death Discs event, as it will look at the top funeral songs and what they tell us us about our attitudes to departing this world. Will he, I wonder, have gone through the 130 or so lists of farewell songs sent in by visitors to My Last Song?

The Natural Burial Ground’s funeral survey results have also been released, and have some interesting if rather partial findings. The survey has clearly and unsurprisingly been answered mainly by those in or close to the funeral business. What we liked about the results was the large percentages of people who go online to get information about funerals and who have written down or told relatives of their funeral wishes.

Sadly as these wishes are often misplaced or disregarded, such admirable intentions are a waste of time. Which is why people should store their funeral wishes and the vital information required by close loved ones immediately after the death in their own Lifebox.

High on the news agenda today was the story that data from the Office for National Statistics showed that dehydration or malnutrition was linked to 25 deaths every week last year. This is the shocking and depressing counterpoint to the admirable efforts others are making, often out of benevolent self interest, to encourage a change in how the British in particular look at death.

Depressingly it is still true that the vast majority of people don’t think about death and don’t talk about death until it is literally too late. And so the chances of having a good death are still remote as we pointed out earlier, with almost 70 per cent of people dying in hospitals or hospices even though over two thirds say they want to die at home.

My Last Song has supported the case for the terminally ill and the ailing elderly to have their own personal death plans, rather as mums-to-be have birth plans. This way the issues surrounding the end of life can be addressed in as calm a way as possible, with the involvement of loved ones, medical professionals and if appropriate, ministers of religion or other comforters.

After some research we created a holistic death plan template which covers emotional, physical, medical, practical and spiritual issues to make the end of life as comfortable and comforting as possible.

Funeral wishes, death plans and the raising of the public’s consciousness about death and dying are pointing in the right direction, but there’s still a long way to go.

Marie Curie, the cancer care charity, this week published the findings of a survey that showed that almost two-thirds (63 per cent) wanted to die at home and 71 per cent would like to be surrounded by friends, family or loved ones. In stark contrast, just three per cent wanted to spend their final hours in hospital.

Yet according to the Office For National Statistics 69 per cent of people in England and Wales died in hospitals and hospices in 2009. And think tank Demos believes that by 2030, just one in ten people will die at home, the rest dying in hospitals and care homes.

I believes that personalised death plans will enable people to be more likely to have the death they want rather than the frightening and lonely end of life experienced in many hospitals. The sort of treatment old and dying people can expect in NHS hospitals was graphically shown on Dispatches earlier this week, confirmation of the Health Service Ombudsman’s criticism of how the NHS deals with the elderly.

The main cause of this often appalling standard of treatment of the dyings is that they don’t have a voice because death is so rarely discussed. Despite the best endeavours of Dying Matters, death is still a taboo subject and therefore the dying haven’t been consulted on how they wish their final days to be spent.

Yet if ailing elderly people and those with terminal illness were encouraged to fill in a death plan, it would mean the involvement of family members and family doctors who would then know what end of life experience the dying person wanted.

Dr Chris Browne, contributing editor of the health section of My Last Song, agrees: “As a GP I believe that death plans should be encouraged as they can empower the patient and their families to take greater control of the end of life experience.  This won’t happen without people’s wishes being discussed, evaluated, written down and then acted upon by family members and medical professionals.”

The death plan template within the Lifebox section of My Last Song covers much more than medical decisions. The headings enable the dying person to be as comfortable in mind and body as possible when their final moments arrive.

These headings allows people to state where they want to die, the level of medical intervention they want, who they want to visit them when they are dying, who should be there, what they want to hear, (music, poetry, prayers), what they want to smell (incense, scented candles, oils, flowers), how they want to be touched (hands held, caressed, gently massaged), and importantly and often overlooked, being clear of worries (knowing their loved ones and pets are cared for, their estate is in order, their will is up to date).

After all, pregnant mothers-to-be are encouraged to create a birth plan so that they are confident that giving birth will be as positive an experience as possible. The same should be achieved if death plans were more widely used.

Advice I never forgot: I was 17 and had finally plucked up courage to ask a lovely student nurse to come to a local dance with me.  To my surprise and delight, she accepted. That Saturday evening I spent a lot of time on my appearance…I was after all a mod, and everything had to be right. I came downstairs looking pretty sharp, and dad gave an appreciative look.

“Got a date?” was his rhetorical question. I told him I was going out with a student nurse. He made sure mum was out of earshot and said to me: “Son, there are only three certainties in life.”  He paused for effect and came close to lower his voice…”tax, death and nurses.”

I won’t tell you whether he was right or not. But I will tell you that since that evening I have had an everlasting admiration  for nurses, not as girlfriends, though I’ve had one or two since then, but for the quality of care they give to their patients.

I have particular respect for the nurses who look after the patients at a care home in Streatham where a friend of mine has been looked after since her stroke five years ago.  But their level of dedication, their strength, kindness and patience is replicated in care homes, hospitals and hospices up and down the country, and includes those who visit their patients in their homes.

It must be particularly difficult to care for and nurse patients who are suffering the late stages of dementia, when there is so little communication between patient and nurse. The patient is usually just a shell of a person, and that shell can be very difficult given the sometimes aggressive behaviour, or if medicated, someone with little or no response to any stimulus.

Late stage dementia patients have no short term memory, but can often recall things that happened  many years ago.

The section in the Vault within My Last Song for favourite fives – where subscribers can list their favourite five of anything (examples could be cars, operas, authors, Motown songs…) could be something that is particularly useful for prompting the memories of later stage dementia sufferers.

A close family member could give the printed out favourite five pages to the care home so that the nursing staff, and other medical professionals, have a prompt that could stimulate some meaningful communication, experiences that mean so very much to the patient…the rare but special moments when they come alive again.

And if this makes the experience of the nurse that much more rewarding and fulfilling, so much the better.