Caring for a patient at the end of life, and performing last offices for the first time, was an emotional but ultimately rewarding experience for nursing student Richard Porritt

When I started my nursing degree last February, I set myself goals I wanted to achieve by the end of my first year. One of these was to care for a patient at the end of life and perform last offices.

Four weeks into my second placement, which was on a rehabilitation ward for elderly people in a community hospital, I experienced this when I helped to care for a female patient, who I will call Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, who was in her mid-seventies, had breast cancer and had been admitted