"He deserved to be afforded some dignity at the end of his life"

My brother died in January from prostate cancer which had been diagnosed some years earlier but it was being controlled with drugs.

In August 2024 he was admitted to Heartlands hospital as his condition had worsened. He stayed at Heartlands for a short while and was sent home. Within a few days he was back in hospital, this time at the QE.

I went to visit him and it was obvious that his condition was significantly worse. However the nurse dealing with his care package was adamant that he should go home and the care package that they had in place was adequate for his needs, namely the installation of a hospital bed at his home and care nurses calling in three times a day.

At this point I should explain that my brother lived alone in small first floor one bed flat. I was not convinced that there was sufficient space to even get the bed into his room. But they were adamant there was no other way. When I objected I was told that I was being obstructive.

Despite the fact that the only way to access his flat was via a narrow staircase and at this point my brother couldn’t even get out of bed without help, in October the hospital bed was installed in his flat. 3 days later we had a call from the hospital to say that the doctor had advised that he should not go home and they were looking for alternative accommodation.

On the 19th October he was moved to Norman Powers care facility.

By the 23rd October he was back in the QE.

On the 25th October he was moved to a care home on the other side of Birmingham, an hour’s journey from family and friends.

On 8th November he was taken Good Hope hospital .

On the 9th November he was sent back to the care home.

On the 2nd January he was sent to a different care home.

On the 3rd January he was back in the QE again.

He died on the 12th January.

The whole experience was very traumatic for his family so it must have been very upsetting for him. My question is that despite all the medical staff presumably knowing that his condition was terminal, he was moved from pillar to post several times and they seemed to be in denial to the point that I was told on one occasion that palliative care did not mean end of life.

I am not medically trained but it seemed clear to me that my brother needed to be in a care home/hospice for those final months of his life. Being shuffled from one place to another was not doing him any good. He deserved to be treated with respect and be afforded some dignity at the end of his life. I should add that my brother was profoundly deaf and the fact that little effort was made by any of the medical teams to ensure that he was understanding them and communicating with them just made the whole debacle worse.