Addenbrooke's Hospital has produced the first hard evidence that relatives benefit from attending resuscitations, but some professionals are still shy of relatives in the resuscitation room

A STUDY by the A&E department at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, found that relatives excluded from the resuscitation room suffer more psychological problems during bereavement than those allowed to witness a failed resuscitation. Significantly, the analysis of 25 resuscitations between November 1995 and February 1997 was abandoned when staff at the unit became convinced that the option to attend emergency treatment should be offered to ail relatives.