Melanie McDonagh (“We need to talk”, 30 August) raises a very pertinent problem facing health-care professionals. Greater longevity will mean more patients with long-term health complications and complex needs. Inevitably this will lead to more people living at home with health complications, and as a result there is likely to be an increase in out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. “Do Not Resuscitate” (DNR) orders allow people to die peacefully, at home, without being conveyed to hospital or having resuscitation efforts instigated by paramedics. Research suggests that up to 70 per cent of people would prefer to die at home, but currently 60 per cent die, or are declared dead, in hospital. As a third-year student paramedic at Plymouth University, I have been to a number