St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth has long been renowned locally for the outstanding end of life care it provides across the city and surrounding areas and now the charity has received prestigious national recognition as Hospice Team of the Year.

Staff and volunteers received the accolade in this year’s Hospice UK Awards, which celebrate the innovative work and people in hospices and palliative care organisations across the UK.

St Luke’s entry for the award centred on its Patches pre-bereavement support for young families.

The service – which launched as a pilot in November 2017 – was developed in response to the changing hospice environment, with St Luke’s seeing an increase in the number of patients under 40 needing its specialist care at home, in hospital and at its specialist unit at Turnchapel.

With most of these patients having young children, they have the daunting task of preparing their young children for their death, which can add extra anxiety at an already challenging time. Meanwhile, the youngsters face the heartbreak of losing a parent and can experience feelings of confusion and fear.

With this in mind, and recognising the positive lasting impact of sensitive, age appropriate support for children in these circumstances, staff and volunteers from across the organisation rallied to develop and deliver a solution that provides bespoke support for each individual family as part as of the seamless package of compassionate care for which St Luke’s is known.

Adapting the existing national pre-bereavement support model, clinical and non-clinical teams came together as one, with doctors and nurses sharing ideas and skills with their social care colleagues, the communications and fundraising teams, maintenance and receptionists.

While St Luke’s has an outstanding Patches Family Support Worker in Lisa Carter, who is there for young families facing loss, her work is enabled and supported by a much wider team across St Luke’s.

Patches, the koi carp cartoon character, and the materials he features in to engage young children and help them make memories with their family, was created by talented in-house graphic designer, Jesse-James Cambridge and volunteer illustrator Marie Arroyo Lopez, while the maintenance team transformed the playroom and implemented the Patches trail around the specialist unit at Turnchapel. In addition, staff and volunteer receptionists ensure a warm welcome at the unit and give out direction for the trail.

Since its launch, the service has helped 134 families.

The outstanding teamwork involved stood out to the Hospice UK judging panel who said, “The project has made an impact to not only its service users but also to its own staff and will help promote the hospice to the local community too. The Patches project can be replicated in other hospices very easily.”

On her recent visit to St Luke’s Tracey Bleakley Chief Executive of Hospice UK said: “I am so impressed by the innovation at the hospice actually, and the fact it comes from all levels. It’s a really great culture of everyone listening, learning and innovating from each other. When ideas come from junior members of staff or people out there working with families like Patches, it’s so impressive how everyone supports that all the way through to the board. Money is found for the project, people work together and the outcome is fantastic and what that really means is that it’s a hospice that’s growing and developing with the community and will continue to do so”.

Steve Statham, Chief Executive of St Luke’s, said: “I’m delighted and proud that the passion, dedication and hard work of our staff and volunteers has been recognised nationally by Hospice UK.

“The hospice movement is renowned for being pioneering, willing to take on a challenge, respond and adapt. Our Patches pre-bereavement support is a shining example of hospice care at its most creative, and it is really heart-warming to see how many families have been helped and how many young lives have been made just that little bit easier.”

Patches is kindly supported by The Morrisons Foundation.

Learn more about Patches.

Watch the behind the scenes making of Patches

Helping care home staff by increasing their knowledge and competence improves care and decreases referrals to stretched NHS services, so it’s great news that our recent Health Education England grant has enabled us to deliver beneficial training that is already making a difference.

Our first cohort of 8 care home students gathered at our Brooklands, Crownhill offices recently to celebrate completing St Luke’s Care Home Assessment of the Sicker Person (CHASP) programme.

Recognising that older people in care homes have increasingly complex needs and require access to good quality nursing care, this new programme supports staff to enhance their clinical skills and minimise avoidable admissions to acute care in hospital.

In addition to learning valuable skills, all the students positively spoke on how the programme gave them a real confidence boost as Emma Peffers at Meadowside and St Francis Care Homes, explains “It gives us the confidence to be able to assess a patient instead of going straight to the registered nurse. We now know what we are looking for, confident to facilitate the observations and then go to the registered nurse which ultimately saves valuable time.”

For care homes providing support around Dementia, the programme provides additional benefits as Ewa Kalend, Care Manager at Greenacres, explains “We deal with people that live with Dementia and often we can’t ask a simple question to establish if they are well or not. The training has given us more confidence to make a judgement and develop our skills further.

Ewa added, for the first time we went into something that has really made a massive change with our confidence. Knowing that there is a St Luke’s team that you can always phone, ask about basics and reassure you that you are doing the right thing, is a massive help.”

Su Jameson, End of Life Clinical Educator at St Luke’s, said: “This grant will further improve the good relationship we have already with care homes. This investment in the professional development of their staff recognises the key role they play in providing care in Plymouth with the aim to improve their knowledge and skills, benefiting both the residents of the care homes and increases the staff morale”.

“It also helps raise the profile of our education team and the diverse training they can offer.”

Learn more about our courses

From bringing out the baking trays to sporting Santa hats, fundraising in the run-up to Christmas can be a lot of fun, so St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth is encouraging local businesses, schools and community groups to get festive on Fridays to help support its vital end of life care.

St Luke’s compassionate specialist team cares for patients 365 days a year and the Christmas period is no different. Over the Christmas week, more than 300 patients will be looked after by the charity’s staff at home, in hospital and at the specialist unit at Turnchapel. The team will also be there supporting patients’ families, and helping them create special memories with their loved one during this special time.

The money raised through Festive Fridays helps ensure this vital care and support continues, and fundraising ideas can be as simple as running a Christmas quiz or a competition to judge the best decoration for the top of the office tree, or donating a small percentage from customers’ bills. Check out our top Christmas jumper picks of 2018.

Pete Ward, Community Fundraiser at St Luke’s, said: “Big or small, we love seeing the creative ways people raise money for St Luke’s, and every penny helps make a difference to our patients and their families.

“Whether a school’s cake sale raises £22 for an hour of a nurse’s care or a large business brings in £206 to fund an urgent visit to a patient at home, Festive Friday is a brilliant way to get together and give something back to your community at this special time of year.”

Register for your free fundraising pack!

This Trustees Week (12-16 November) we say a big St Luke’s thank you to our Trustees, all volunteering their time and expertise for the good of our charity.

We caught up with our Chair of The Board, Christina Quinn to find out more about the role of a trustee.