SPS6: Digital legacy and future care planning - Stories from a Cancer Hospital

The use of internet enabled devices by patients at the hospital;/hospice bedside appears to be increasing. Digital connections are everywhere, and can bring new opportunities when we are seriously ill. But what makes a good digital death? And how can digital media bring meaning during serious life-limiting illness? In this talk, Dr Mark Taubert will outline his experience with patients, carers, researchers and fellow healthcare professionals working in palliative care, and how since 2013 he has tried to make good use of new media. The taboo around death and dying is seemingly starting to crumble on Youtube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with many more opportunities for us in palliative care to influence debate. How celebrities die, for instance, is increasingly commented on, but Mark will also tell stories from the wards and clinics, where people have asked him questions about what they should do with digital content when faced with the end of their lives. Mark is a palliative care doctor at Velindre NHS Trust cancer hospital in Cardiff (UK) and a senior lecturer at Cardiff University. He is national strategic lead for advance and future care planning in Wales and holds roles with the Bevan Commission, Byw Nawr and the End of Life Care board in Wales. Mark is a regular speaker and editor in areas relating to palliative care, digital media, resuscitation and end of life care. He also contributed to a BBC Radio 4 programme in the UK called “My Digital Legacy” in 2017 with the presenter Joan Bakewell. Mark will illustrate a story of a patient he worked with who created digital legacy content in the form of videos and messages, to be viewed at significant future dates in his family’s life. The journey to achieve this was in many ways harder than achieving good symptom control and took a significant emotional toll, but was what the patient truly wanted. The story was reported on by BBC World in 2019, as part of a report about digital legac