Guardian opinion: UK's palliative care system needs urgent reform, nurse argues

In an opinion piece for The Guardian, Jane Turner, chief nurse at the palliative care charity Sue Ryder, argues that the UK's palliative care system is failing far too many people and needs urgent reform.

Turner writes that during the recent parliamentary debate on assisted dying, MPs who disagreed on the core issue nonetheless converged on one point: that palliative care reform is urgently needed.

According to her piece, some MPs described personal experiences of relatives forced to wait in pain, or who had to go to hospital because appropriate support was not available to them at home.

Turner calls on the UK government, currently addressing major national challenges at the Labour party conference, not to lose sight of the message that emerged from the assisted dying debate just two weeks earlier.