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Postcards from the Land of Grief – Comforting thoughts for the NHS

(by Richard Littledale)

I write this as a person wearing many hats. I write as a grateful member of my community a rainbow displayed in my window and hands clapped raw on a Thursday night. I write as a Pastor of some 30-years standing, a person who considers it an enormous privilege to accompany people through the shadowlands of bereavement. I write as a bereaved husband having lost my wife to cancer at the age of 53 in Autumn 2017. I also write as an author and broadcaster on the subject of bereavement. It is a specialism which I neither sought nor welcomed, but about which I speak and write often now.

I have been very concerned about the cumulative impact of multiple deaths amongst patients and colleagues on staff. In the thick of it, the time to process what is going on is so limited. In consultation with my publisher, Authentic Media, I have produced a special edition of my book Postcards from the land of grief. Reactions to this material both from a global BBC Radio 4 audience and the 2019 annual Sue Ryder lecture would suggest that it may be of help to people. This PDF selection from the book is intended as a tool to aid staff in reflecting on what they are seeing and feeling. Each postcard is short, and the whole document is only 27 pages long. We would like to make it freely available to any NHS staff who would like to access it.

Please click to access the Postcards-from-the-Land-of-Grief-Comforting-thoughts-for-the-NHS  postcards in pdf format.

Thank you.