This. Most people either have, are going through, or will go through a cancer crisis in their lives, and not just cancer, but any terminal illness. It's not a good idea to prolong such a storyline, it affects badly too many viewers, I alone lost 2 close family members last year to cancer - both lasted several years before they were taken. I agree with covering terminal illness, one in three of us will be closely affected by it in an average lifetime, but I don't want to see it played out for months/years on my TV, too distressing.

She probably would have died from the smoke first, so it wouldn't have been all that slow.

In Donna's case, I quite liked the ending in the end (the fact that she essentially sacrificed herself for her daughter), and I was calling it a cop out when I thought she'd be shot during the job. Hayley's went quite close to the end (wheelchair bound and in bed a lot of the time; ) no doubt the two would have been deemed too similar if Donna went that far.

I do wish she'd told Ross and Bob the truth first though.

It was so emotional.....difficult to watch...difficult not to get involved....

A lot of the time soaps do take the suicide/assisted suicide root but most of the time it makes sense - like in Hayley's storyline.

This storyline definitely made sense for her to take her life. The storyline wasn't so much about the cancer, but a young woman spending her last few months the way she wanted. Donna got into a life of a crime before she died - yes she was doing it for April, but I think she was also doing it for the thrill and Ross - she wanted one last fling, which led to one last guy she was in love with. The thrill and the life of crime she seeked eventually led to her death. A deathbed ending wouldn't have suited the storyline, and if Donna had come back just to die and not gotten into crime it wouldn't have been interesting tbh

That is a really interesting point and I hadn't thought of it from that angle.

The soaps do seem fully supportive of the issue and I agree that can only be a good thing.

Hence why I said so in my post.

But hey-ho who wouldn't choose to sit in a burning building to die? It's a perfectly normal thing to do. But given how quick the block of flats went up I'd say she burned to death.

Made no sense to me at all.
She must have known, that the Police service had an in death benefits scheme, and her daughter would have not suffered financially.
Turning bad cop was a ridiculous story line, very out of character, plus Donna would never have been physically fit enough to work as long as she did.
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I think you've misunderstood the point of soaps... They are not about raising awareness.. They're not about social comment... They're entertainment. That's it. There's nothing more.

Yes they are entertainment, however, they do have a responsibility towards their viewers and for the stories they choose to tell, usually topical together with the staple diet of babies, affairs and angst.

The majority of, if not all soap stories are researched thoroughly with an approved body relating to that particular issue, so of course there is a strong element of reality and approval involved before the story producers and writers can even let it go to air.

It is extremely rare today for any television channel or any programme not to provide contact details relating to the issues tackled within it at the close of the transmission.

They simply have a huge responsibility to any viewer to tell a story in the correct way, to get the facts exactly right and also to send the right message across. I agree that soaps and other programmes are there to entertain, however, some viewers are vulnerable and programme makers have to vitally take into consideration what audience they are playing to.