Nearly twenty years ago I returned to my old school. My brother and the rest of his year group were moving on and the school were holding their annual leavers ceremony in which all their departing pupils were presented with a bible or a thesaurus or something, and families were invited. One person I knew I was going to meet was a lady who was my brother's head of year and had been my head of year in my turn too. She had also taught me maths and science at various times during my four years at the school. She was also dying of bowel cancer.

I remember clearly asking my mother what I should say. Many of the normal pleasantries with which you might greet someone ('You're looking well', 'How are you?' 'How have you been?') melt in the face of such a serious illness. I remembered this last week as I was sitting on a train on my way to visit my aunt, who is staying in a hospice just outside Bristol. Cancer (which she has) is the epitome of the sort of illness which raises all these complex (non-medical) challenges. There is the genuine anxiety of the long term consequences for the sufferer, as well as for their immediate well-being. There is the concern for the nearest and dearest of the sufferer. Then of course there is the anxiety about how you interact with them both, treat them with the right combination of compassion and sensitivity. You can't dwell on the cancer, but then you can't pretend it isn't there, either.

The issue was starkly illustrated for me when I arrived at St Peter's Hospice in Bristol. It's a really nice location. The building is single story, light, airy and set amidst several acres of well-tended lawn and colourful planting in a quiet residential area. It's soothing and pleasant. You wouldn't mind staying there for a few days, it's a bit like a spa break. Take away the stark and undisguisable fact that the residents are seriously ill and often dying, and the atmosphere of sadness that inevitably pervades, and it's a really nice place. Guess what – its funding is 80% private.

This highlights one of my habitual bugbears. As a society we do not spend enough on caring. Now (excuse me if I get a trifle philosophical here) a society is a composite of its people but the people are also hugely effected by the behaviour of the society. And what does our society place most value on – the wellbeing of its citizens or the cost and value of that wellbeing? The patient/staff ratio in a place such as this is high, so the place is expensive. I didn't see the whole site, but what little I saw was in a marvellous location with great country views on the outskirts of Bristol with plenty of room for 3-4 bed housing to be built. It would have been worth a fortune to a developer. And if we're selling of playing fields within six months of our triumphant Olympics, why not sell off costly residential care homes and stick the residents in hospitals instead?

Listen to any politician long enough and they'll start to prattle on about respect, or something similar. They may well tell you that society has changed; they might even blame the young, or possibly immigrants. But we elected them to lead our society and their decisions on how it works, its laws, its functions, its attitudes and its spending, all affect how we see society and our role within it. Make the world all about the value of things and, necessarily, we will start to accumulate as much money as we can to compete for the things that we need and want. Alternatively you could put value on the people. Spend money on making the populace happy, healthy and cared for and pretty soon, I'll be willing to bet, more and more people will start to see the value in that. Plenty of people, actually lots of people, already do. They're just waiting for everyone else to catch up.

Oooh… before I forget – if you are a carer, or if you just want to pop in and say 'hi' why not visit Carers of H2G2

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benjaminpmoore

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