For Dying Matters Awareness Week 2023, the focus is on Dying Matters at work

(8th – 14th May 2023)

Every year, people around the country use Dying Matters Awareness Week as a moment to encourage communities to get talking in whatever way, shape or form works for them.

This year, Dying Matters wants you to start conversations about death, dying and grief in the workplace. By talking with those around you, you can help us make sure that workplaces are properly set up to support people who are ill, who are caring for those around them, or who have lost someone close to them.

Stigma around grieving, and a lack of understanding about what it means to be ill and what happens when you’re dying, mean that too many of us are struggling to cope when faced with life’s inevitable challenges. And the workplace is no exception.

We spend so much of our lives at work – and we shouldn’t have to hide our experiences of death and dying from our colleagues, our peers, or our bosses. Dying Matters want to create an open and compassionate society where we are all comfortable facing the realities of dying, death and grief.

By talking to those around you, you can help make sure that workplaces are properly set up to support people who are ill, who are caring for those around them, or who have lost someone close to them.

We want you to get involved!

Anyone can get involved in Dying Matters Awareness Week – whether with friends and family, with your company or in the community.

Hospices, healthcare trusts, schools, theatre groups, libraries, care homes, artists – we’re amazed by the diversity, breadth and creativity of the organisations who get involved.

And they all have one thing in common: whoever starts the conversation, and however they do it, they never find it as challenging as they feared, and they always feel better for having started talking.

Find out what’s taking place around the UK for Dying Matters Awareness Week – Click here

Paul Sartori Hospice at Home together with Sandy Bear children’s bereavement charity are hosting two plays delivered by Artistic Licence to encourage discussion about death, dying and grief:

“Operation Hummingbird” looks at the experiences of Jimmy an eleven year old whose mother is diagnosed with a terminal illness through the eyes of his grown up self.

The award winning “Colder Than Here” is a bittersweet black comedy tackling the difficulties of a dysfunctional family grappling with the final months of their mum’s life. Somehow they find the light even in the darkest of times.