Dr. Regina McQuillan:

In my experience, if I am ever giving a prognosis I always qualify it with the statement that I am likely to be wrong and I try to avoid being very precise. Research shows it is very difficult to be precise about this.

Even from the perspective of end of life care, we are here from Ireland and the UK. In Ireland, end-of-life care describes the last hours, days and weeks of life and in the UK it is called the last year of life. Even from a government policy point of view, there are those broad differences. It is a difficult thing to do. When you give people prognoses, you try to qualify what it means. That is partly, as Professor Watson asked, why do people need to know. You are trying to help people to make appropriate decisions.