Once I've been to somebody, and maybe they've never had someone there before, and they know they can call us and they know when they call us, something happens, they actually get help, then I know everything is much calmer. I could walk into a situation, sometimes really stressful situations, where there's lots of family present and emotions are heightened.

But when I walk out, I've calmed the situation, I've made it more manageable, I've made the situation a lot better and made people feel more supported - and that's just really nice because I drive away thinking, yes, I’ve done a good job.

I also feel I’ve done a good job when I’ve made a patient who is in pain or agitated comfortable and completely settled, and reassured their scared family. The patient hopefully goes on to have a good death in the end because they are comfortable and settled at home and their family is calm.

A rapid response visit to someone in crisis could be to a patient who we've not really had anything to do with yet, where the patient has sudden agitation or pain. They may have been quite OK before and then suddenly they deteriorate, and they have no care in place and everything suddenly become unmanageable. There could be a hysterical, frightened person on the phone saying ‘I don't know what to do’ prompting a rapid response from us. That would probably be the first time we had ever met that patient because we don't have a caseload as such.

We make every minute matter in a crisis because it's important not to miss the cues, and by visiting them at home we get a full picture with what's really happening. Sometimes we go and it's much worse than we understood it to be on the phone, and sometimes it's not as bad as we were expecting.

If when we arrive, they are actively dying, we will try to stay with them for as long as is needed. At that minute it's really important to have very clear conversation with relatives, to use clear and concise language, to say they are dying, I think they're dying, I think they're going to die very soon. Not to just say he's quite poorly at the moment, that sort of thing doesn't really help. You have to be very clear, and it's not easy to tell someone their loved one is about to die but there's no point beating around the bush because that doesn't help. You have to get used to having difficult conversations and that doesn't get easier.