Jim Carter admitted he isn't afraid of addressing death, as he campaigns to raise awareness of end-of-life care. The Downton Abbey star, 77, made an appearance on Channel 5 News after charity Marie Curie warned that palliative care in England is in crisis. The UK's leading end-of-life charity found that around 170,000 people every year spend their final days in pain or distress. Speaking to presenter Dan Walker, Jim said he believes "everybody deserves a good death" and although it is tragic, it shouldn't be distressing for people. 

He said: "I think everybody deserves a good death, if there is such a thing. Death is always tragic and always sad, but it shouldn't be distressing. I don't see any reason for that." Acknowledging the statistics from Marie Curie, he revealed 170,000 people dying in pain or distress amounts to one person every three minutes, describing it as an "alarming statistic".

However, it doesn't only impact the people dying, but also that person's family members who "feel they've let their loved one down".

Jim, a Marie Curie ambassador, continued: "It's fixable. I'm absolutely convinced it's an easy fix as long as the government grasps the nettle and brings out this modern services framework, this new plan to change things. It's not an easy fix but it's fixable if it's focussed on."

Asked how end-of-life care has ended up in crisis, Jim explained: "We're all a bit squeamish about speaking about death so maybe we're not driving it enough. Maybe we're not putting enough pressure on the department of health.

"That's the only reason I can think of because you don't want to die in an ambulance, stretcher or an A&E ward. We'd like to die, as we have to, inevitably, in a hospice or at home being looked after properly, not in a hospital bed surrounded by strangers."

Acknowledging that he can speak openly about death because it doesn’t worry him, Jim said it is something that touches everyone at some point in life, which is why end-of-life care deserves greater attention.

He said: "I can talk about death. It doesn't worry me. I'm a generation or two away from it, but it affects everybody. With children, their grandparents will die. It's going to happen to everybody so we need to look at it."

Offering potential solutions, Jim went on: "If we can introduce hubs that give 24/7 telephone connection so people can be helped with their pain medication and get some support, that's one thing.

"Someone to talk to, someone to help them at four o'clock in the morning when they're in pain. That's what we need.

"It needs to happen all over the country so it's not a postcode lottery. Also the health professionals – our blessed doctors and nurses in the NHS whom I love unreservedly – they need support because they're not trained to get palliative care, which is very complex."

The actor argued that providing more palliative care in the community rather than in hospitals would ultimately save money and reduce pressure on the health system.

"It will save money in the end because it's clogging up hospital beds," Jim said. "It needs to be taken out of hospital."

The Cranford star added: "Wes Streeting said this already: take palliative care out of hospitals and into the community – where they want to be anyway – and it will stop, down the line, hospitals being clogged up with more and more older people."