Chapter 28: End of life care
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Last Offices
Definition
The term ‘Last Offices’ is historically related to the Latin officium, meaning service or duty. It is used to refer to the final act performed on a person's body. Last Offices, sometimes referred to as ‘laying out’, is the term for the nursing care given to a deceased patient, which demonstrates continued respect for the patient as an individual (NMC [41]). Nursing care continues even after death. Last Offices includes health, safety and legal requirements, making the person's body safe to handle, respecting religious, cultural and spiritual requirements, and making the person who has died as pleasant as possible for others to see.
Patients, even though they have died, are still referred to as patients or people throughout this section.
