This article discusses the considerations and actions taken to facilitate the discharge of a ventilated end-of-life patient called Michael, whose name has been changed for confidentiality, from a critical care unit (CCU) to his expressed preferred place of care. It focuses on how the district nurse (DN) and the single point of access (SPA) for end-of-life care teams by working between primary and secondary care services and across organisational service units were able to facilitate this discharge and achieve the wishes of Michael to die peacefully at home. For all services involved, this proved to be a complex discharge and following completion of the care episode a root cause analysis was undertaken to capture the lessons learnt and advise the CCU at a services debreif how discharges to the community from the CCU could be improved.
