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BLOG: A trip to the shops shines a light on St Luke’s amazing volunteers

 

It’s no exaggeration to say that St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth couldn’t deliver its crucial and compassionate end of life care without the support of its army of big-hearted volunteers who give their time and talents for free. This Volunteers’ Week (1-7 June) St Luke’s is saluting them all with a huge, heartfelt thank you, and new CEO Christina Quinn has been out and about meeting a few of these very special people in person.

The charity has an amazing 668 regular volunteers – 464 of them in the charity’s shops across Plymouth, West Devon, the South Hams and East Cornwall, sorting donations, steaming and hanging clothing, creating displays and serving customers.

Christina’s whistlestop tour took in three popular stores, where she got a feel for who St Luke’s retail volunteers are and why they choose to do what they do.

She says: “We get so much from the volunteers, but what is lovely is that they all said how much they get from it as well and they have real pride in supporting the vital work of St Luke’s.

“Visiting the Plymstock, Elburton and Transit Way shops it was clear how much the store managers appreciate and value their volunteers, as we all do too. None of us can do this without them.”

During her visits, Christina heard some heartening stories from individual volunteers, each with unique backgrounds and experiences but with the same aim in mind.

Barbara

A volunteer with special niche knowledge can be a real boon to St Luke’s shop managers. Barbara Daniel used to have an antiques shop on the Barbican and she would sometimes come in to St Luke’s to help value jewellery donations.

After she and her husband closed their business, Barbara began volunteering twice a week at our Plymstock shop where she’s now the resident jewellery expert. Using her keen eye, she takes a good look at items when they arrive, spotting anything that could potentially be quite valuable and doing her homework to make sure the price is right to raise as much as possible to support St Luke’s end of life care.

Barbara is delighted to use her expertise and has identified a few choice pieces that have sold for between £400 and £500.

She says: “I think most volunteers feel like it’s a social occasion to come here and meet people. It keeps the brain ticking over as you get older. I certainly missed it during the lockdown.”

Barbara also loves hunting down bargains in St Luke’s shops. When her son got married recently, both she and her daughter found their glamorous outfits for the big day in one of the charity’s stores.

They each discovered almost new dress and jacket ensembles that would originally have cost hundreds of pounds. Of course, generous Barbara donated hers straight back to St Luke’s after she’d worn it!

Julie

Volunteering for St Luke’s is especially poignant for Julie Lukehurst, a recent recruit at the Elburton shop. Hospital doctors told her that her cancer was incurable and that the best thing for her would be palliative care at St Luke’s specialist unit at Turnchapel.

“I was offered a bed but said I wouldn’t be going there because I wasn’t dying,” recalls Julie.  Four years later she is in remission, managing her illness with medication and pacing her energy through good and bad days. “I think it’s fantastic that St Luke’s is there. That’s why I want to give something back.

“I’ve always worked but couldn’t when I was unwell and I missed it. I moved to a little cottage just down the road from the Elburton shop and used to come in as a customer. One day Rachel the manager asked me if I’d like to volunteer.”

Julie is now quickly learning the ropes volunteering twice a week, sorting stock and serving customers, and she’s mastering the till, even though she’s a self-confessed technophobe.

“I get more pleasure out of being here than I do anywhere. Everyone here is so lovely and friendly and we’re all here for the same reason – to make money for care.  But it’s also a social thing. I could easily stay at home seeing nobody,” says Julie.

Darren

Darren King is a carer for his wife, so he’s unable to go into paid employment. But he loves volunteering at St Luke’s Transit Way shop, just five minutes’ walk from home so he can run back if he’s needed. Working in the shop gives him a sense of purpose and a break from being in the house all the time.

“I just love being here. This is my baby, and the people are like family to me, especially Steve, the manager. He makes work a pleasure.

“The satisfaction you get when you put something through the till and you know it’s going to such a good cause is amazing. There’s no better feeling than clearing £1,000 and knowing that will pay for someone to be cared for at home – it’s a goal we all set for ourselves. We all take pride in the store and it’s really rewarding.”

On the day Christina visited Darren was working alongside a team of fellow volunteers including regulars Mel, Pam and Sue, all supervised by manager Steve Evans. He says it takes a minimum of 10 volunteers to help run the large Transit Way clothing shop and the adjacent bric-a-brac store. There’s a constant stream of donated items being brought in by customers, many on their way to the supermarket next door, and they all need checking, sorting and pricing.

Christina was impressed and humbled by her shop visits. She says: “Every single individual makes a unique contribution towards our shared goal to provide the very best holistic care for people with terminal illness at the end of their lives and compassionate support for their loved ones.

“Barbara, Julie and Darren are all doing a fantastic job and it’s so great to know that they enjoy what they do and get satisfaction from knowing they are giving something back.”

St Luke’s is always looking for more volunteers to help in our shops for a few hours or more each week. These are the stores that are currently in urgent need of more helping hands:  Western Approach/Toys ’R’ Us, Shabby Chic on the Barbican, Sugar Mill, Drake and New George Street in the city centre, Plymstock Bookshop, Tavistock and Launceston.

If you have some time to spare and would like to get involved in a worthwhile cause working alongside like-minded people, find out more and get in touch via our volunteering page or email volunteer@stlukes-hospice.org.uk.

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BLOG: The story of a St Luke’s collecting can

The story of a St Luke’s collecting can

What’s orange and black and (hopefully) full of cash? It’s me, of course. I’m a St Luke’s collecting can. I sit on the counter in shops, pubs, clubs, cafes, garages, pharmacies, betting shops and takeaways – anywhere with generous customers who like to fill my tummy with their spare change.

I don’t suppose you think about me much. I’m just there, instantly recognisable, wearing my distinctive St Luke’s logo with pride, as people kindly pop a few coins, and occasionally a paper note or two, through the slit in my head, knowing that their donation is going to support local families at a really difficult time in their lives.

That’s all you probably need to know, but there’s actually a lot more to discover about me and my hundreds of friends who are at this very moment dotted all over an area of more than 700 square miles around Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall.

We don’t just hang around in one place, you know. We’re vital cogs in St Luke’s well-oiled community fundraising machine and we’re constantly on the move. So, what does go on in the life of a collecting can like me? As I can only speak from my own experience – and I really do love almost every minute of it – I decided to spend a bit of time with someone who knows the ins and outs of the whole journey.

It usually starts with me and some of my mates in a big bag in a car boot (where I can feel a bit queasy, to be honest). But for one day only I was allowed to sit up front next to Ray Satchell, St Luke’s esteemed can collector, to follow him on his rounds and ask a few questions about the bigger picture.

Ray’s our boss. I’ll never understand how he keeps tabs on us all, but he’s very organised and has lots of charts and tick boxes and tools to work out when and where he needs to pick us up or drop us off.

Anyone can tell that he’s passionate about his job. Starting off as St Luke’s official can collector back in 2015, he hangs out with us three days a week, and then, as part of his new title of supporter adviser, he spends a fourth day out and about delivering leaflets and posters to promote St Luke’s big fundraising events, like Midnight Walk, Tour de Moor and Men’s Day Out. I’m not sure his brain ever switches off.

Ray always has his eye out for new supporters and one thing that really puts a smile on his face is delivering a St Luke’s can like me to a place that’s never had one before. He’s done that 78 times in the past year, and that’s 78 more opportunities for me and my friends to fill up with cash to support the heartfelt and comforting end of life care our organisation provides.

Like everyone else, we’ve just been through a bit of a tough patch. It was all going great guns until something called Covid put a spanner in the works. When all the shops, pubs and restaurants shut, and people had to stay indoors, it was pretty lonely – and hungry – for us cans. I know my stomach was rumbling.

Four years ago, we brought in £87,000 in 12 months. After Covid, our totals had dropped 25 to 30 per cent. Ray was a bit worried about how more people using contactless cards rather than carrying cash would affect donations, but he’s delighted that the cans are rattling well again now, and the amounts are starting to creep up.

He’s hoping this year’s can collection total will be around £60,000 – that’s enough to care for around 60 St Luke’s patients and their families at home. How brilliant is that?

But it’s not just about the money. We are the familiar face of St Luke’s that people see most often when they’re out and about in their local communities. We remind them that our wonderful hospice care teams are there to help when they need it most.

Quite often we’ll find ourselves sitting next to a can from another national or local charity, like the Air Ambulance or the lifeboats. I don’t mind that too much. It stirs up a bit of friendly rivalry and a certain satisfaction if you fill up faster than your neighbour, but we definitely fare better on solo duty!

Ray has divided the huge area he covers into 17 distinct patches, with a total of around 1100 businesses with cans displayed at any one time. There are between 700 and 800 cans in the city of Plymouth alone, with a few outreach areas – places like Looe and Torpoint, Kingsbridge and Salcombe on the fringes of St Luke’s catchment area. Each day he’ll make 20 to 30 visits with the aim of bringing back at least 15 full cans.

At quick win locations we cans are jam-packed within a couple of weeks – corner shops like Costcutter, Premier and the local Co ops are all reliable, apparently. In a lot of places it will take three to six months, or longer, before we’re ready to collect.

People’s generosity never ceases to amaze Ray, he says. The average amount inside a full collecting can is £25. In corner shops I’m used to people popping in their change when they come in to buy a paper or a pint of milk. Children can be really big-hearted too, giving me the 20p or 30p left over when they buy their sweets or crisps.

In the pub sometimes a group of pals will spot me and start chatting about a friend or family member who was cared for by St Luke’s before they died and then they’ll decide to show their appreciation by stuffing me with five and ten pound notes. I fill up pretty quickly then, I can tell you! People do feel very strongly about supporting their local hospice and that’s great for me.

Today Ray and I are on one of the long-distance runs, starting just over the Cornwall border in Launceston. A full can often weighs more than 3kg, so when Ray parks up in a town centre like this where there are quite a lot of stops, we get to ride on the trolley he keeps in the car. It certainly saves his back on a day when he could end up hauling around 30-40kg.

There are some lovely loyal supporters all around this North Cornwall community. At Westgate Greetings Cards a full can is waiting out the back and there’s another out on the counter with plenty of coins in.

Owner Trish Sampson agrees that St Luke’s is really popular with her customers.
Around the square at Finlay’s newsagents another of my pals is almost brimming over. They only ever collect for St Luke’s in there, apart from supporting the Poppy Appeal each autumn.

The local Coop, where they keep a can beside each of the two tills, the White Hart pub, the Co-op Garage on Western Road, and Greenaway’s Garage at Newport all hand over a full can and Ray replaces them with empty ones.

Of course, there’s always one of us on the counter in St Luke’s own shops, like the big store at Hendra Way in Launceston. Ray pops in there for a chat with staff member Colette Hardy and comes away with another of my well-fed mates.

With his heavy load safely locked in the boot, Ray drives us across into Devon and along the old A30 to Lifton’s Strawberry Fields farm shop and café where they hand over three weighty cans – an excellent result.

Our next stop is a trip down memory lane for me. I’ve enjoyed a couple of happy stays on the counter at Lewdown Village Stores in my time. It’s a fabulous, old-fashioned little sweet shop and grocery with a post office counter, and it’s great to see owner Elizabeth Copper still collecting for St Luke’s. She and her husband David have been running the place since 1969!

That’s 13 years longer than St Luke’s has been going! After a quick break to stretch our legs, get a breath of fresh air and say hello to the ponies in the beautiful and dramatic landscape of Dartmoor, we reach Princetown post office, our final call, and our last full can changeover.

As we drive back towards Plymouth and St Luke’s HQ at Turnchapel, I feel sad that my special adventure is coming to an end, but there are still a couple of important elements of my story to tell you about.

After Ray has locked us away safely at the hospice, trusty finance office volunteer Otto will come and relieve us of our heavy cargo, tipping out all the coins and notes – not to mention the occasional unwanted boiled sweet or bus ticket – bagging and totting up the cash, and recording the total for each can. It’s important that all our supporters know how much their cans raise and our supporter care team sends each of them a personal thank you letter.

Once Otto has emptied our bellies, we wait patiently in big plastic bags for Ian and Sue to fish us out. By the time these hard-working volunteers get their hands on us we can be pretty grubby, to be fair. It’s an amazing feeling when they give us a wash and a spruce up, with fresh labels ready for our next assignment.

These two clean around 2,500 cans a year, and they’ve been doing it for ten years now, getting through 60 or 70 collecting cans a day, as well as fitting in some of the big buckets that go round at events like Men’s Day Out.

That’s it, then… we’re back to the beginning of the story and we’re back in the boot of Ray’s car (feeling a bit queasy), excited to represent St Luke’s out in the community, each of us making a small but significant difference as part of the big fundraising jigsaw.

Before I go, I’d just like to remind you that however large or small the donation you drop into a can, we treat it with the care and respect it deserves, knowing that every penny counts when there’s such important work to be done.If you know someone who would welcome a collecting can like me for their business, just give St Luke’s Supporter Care a call on 01752 492626, email info@stlukes-hospice.org.uk or send us a direct message on our social media channels.

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BLOG: Look after your loved ones this Make a Will Week.

 

Making a will is often a task we put off for another day. But recording your wishes is actually a very straightforward process, as well as an act of kindness for those you leave behind. With that in mind, St Luke’s is inviting people to take advantage of their Make a Will Week, which runs from 15 – 21 May 2023.

Community-spirited local solicitors are giving their time free of charge during the week to create wills, in return for a donation to our charity, with an option to also leave a legacy for St Luke’s. The funds this raises will allow us to continue our valuable end of life care and support services for families in Plymouth and surrounding areas for years to come.

Having a will in place can bring you peace of mind, safe in the knowledge that your wishes will be followed through after your death. For your loved ones, having an official record of what you want to happen will make an already distressing time a little bit easier for them. A will spells out exactly how you want your estate to be distributed, rather than everything you own being shared in the standard way specified by law, which might not match up with what you would prefer.

It’s especially important to make a will if you have children, grandchildren or other family members who depend on you financially, or if you want to leave a gift to people or organisations you care about. It’s also crucial to update your will when personal circumstances change, for example, if you get married or divorced, purchase a property, have children or grandchildren, or if a partner or other family member dies.

The generous companies taking part in St Luke’s Make a Will Week include GA Solicitors, Bright Solicitors, Windeatts Solicitors, Roper James Solicitors, SWLaw and Woollcombe Yonge Solicitors and they are available for face-to-face pre-booked appointments during the week of 15 – 21 May 2023.  We have also teamed up with the online will writing service Farewill, which will provide a convenient and quick way of recording your wishes without having to even step out your door.

St Luke’s Head of Fundraising Penny Hannah said: “As we get older it is easy to overlook recording our wishes for when we’re gone, but our Make a Will Week is an ideal opportunity to make or update your will and bring peace of mind for the years to come.

“People often forget that it is not always about sorting out the financial aspects. A will ensures your final wishes are clear. Your possessions and property are going to the right place, and the family and children you leave behind will be looked after.

Creating or updating your will is also a time when you can choose to leave a legacy to a cause close to your heart. For St Luke’s, it is the funds we receive through legacies that help us plan for the future so that no-one in our local community who has a terminal illness will have to miss out on compassionate care at the end of their lives.

Penny Hannah said: “Leaving a legacy to St Luke’s is a compassionate gesture that helps future generations and makes more of a difference to our patients and their families than you will ever know.”

To create or update your will, simply contact one of the solicitors taking part to make an appointment between 15 and 21 May, quoting ‘St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth Make a Will Week’.

Book your appointment today!

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BLOG: Reflections from CEO Steve

With my retirement as St Luke’s Chief Executive coming up on 4 May, I want to take this opportunity to say what an immense privilege it has been to serve at the helm of our hospice for the past six years.

It would be far too difficult to home in on just one or two memories that I will take with me from my time as CEO, and my years as Deputy and HR Director before that, so instead I’ll share the overriding feeling I am left with as I approach retirement.

It really has been way more than a job – it has been the most incredible journey, working alongside our amazing staff and volunteers, and I speak from my heart when I say I am very proud of what we have achieved together, always putting the best interests of our patients and their families at the centre of what we do.

I want to say a huge thank-you to everyone I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with at St Luke’s. The dedication all our staff and volunteers show to our community day in, day out is second to none, and I say this recognising that maintaining such a high calibre of service is often very challenging in the face of growing demands on our hospice team. I am so grateful to have ended my career at a place where everyone cares so much and is working towards the same, shared goal.  

The decision to step away has not been an easy one, but I am retiring at the time that feels right for me, professionally and personally, and with the assurance of knowing that St Luke’s incoming CEO, Christina Quinn, is absolutely the best pair of hands to receive the reins from me.

She will be supported by the same great group of senior management colleagues I have been fortunate enough to work alongside.

For those of you who don’t already know, until last November Christina was Chair of our charity’s Board of Trustees. She comes with not only her trademark dynamism and many years’ experience at senior level within the NHS, but also the knowledge, wisdom and insight gained from six years of leading our governing body, during which time we have weathered the pandemic and gone through transformation.

I want to thank current Chair of Trustees Charles Hackett (and former Chair Christina), and every other member of our board for their support over the years. Being a trustee is a massive responsibility and they work tirelessly to steer our charity safely towards our vision. We could not do what we do without them.

As I prepare for my retirement (I’m still getting used to that word!) and then ‘decompressing’ from the huge responsibility of running a hospice, I want to let you know that I am not thinking of this as ‘goodbye’. While I won’t be interfering in the running of St Luke’s, I’ll be following St Luke’s with interest and great affection – and you’re bound to see me pop up, getting muddy at Tour de Moor and no doubt volunteering at Midnight Walk.

In signing off this last message as St Luke’s CEO, I want to say thank you again to everyone for their support in making sure St Luke’s continues to be the safe haven our community needs for anyone diagnosed with, or affected by, life-limiting illness.

Thank you.

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BLOG: Marking volunteer Margarethe’s silver service at St Luke’s

Back in 1998 Margarethe Marsh walked into her local St Luke’s charity shop and offered to help once a week. Twenty-five years on, she’s still volunteering at our Saltash branch and loving every minute of it.

This week shop manager Hayley Pollard was joined by St Luke’s head of retail Mike Picken and retail area manager John Saunders to congratulate Margarethe on her inspirational long service and present her with an engraved plaque, a certificate of recognition and flowers, as well as plenty of cake to share with her shop colleagues.

When Margarethe began volunteering, the Saltash St Luke’s shop was at the top of Fore Street, virtually next door to the opticians where she worked part time. Looking for something worthwhile to fill her time after her two daughters had grown up and left home, she popped in to ask her friend Brenda, then the shop manager, if she could lend a hand.

“And the rest is history,” laughed Margarethe, 74, whose infectious smile and ready humour light up the whole shop. “I knew Brenda socially and I had heard about St Luke’s, Dr Sheila Cassidy and the history of how it all started.

“I didn’t have any personal family reason for getting involved – I was very lucky then to have a healthy family – but it was a way for me to give something back.”

Living locally with her husband, she has been a stalwart of the volunteer team at Saltash once a week ever since, moving with the shop when it relocated to more modern and spacious premises closer to the Tamar Bridge around eight years ago.

Turning her hand to anything that needs doing, from serving customers and manning the till to sorting through donations, steaming clothes, pricing items and putting them out for sale on the shop floor, Margarethe says nothing much has changed over the years, apart from people’s attitudes to charity shops.

“They don’t have the stigma they used to,” says Margarethe. “There’s certainly nothing musty or smelly about this place and we’re very lucky with the donations and support we get here. Because St Luke’s is local, people are very generous.”

One of the aspects she enjoys most is the chance to spend time with a wide variety of people and she has a special camaraderie with her fellow volunteers and a great relationship with manager Hayley, as well as regular customers.

“It gives me friendship and a reason to be out,” adds Margarethe, whose activities have become a little restricted by a degenerative eye condition. “I can’t read, the TV is blurry and I’ve had to give away all my craft materials because I can’t see well enough any more. But there is always something useful for me to do here.”

She especially enjoys meeting the younger volunteers. “It’s lovely because you can be cheeky and fun with them. You can give them the benefit of your experience and you can learn a lot from them too.”

Find out more about volunteering with St Luke’s here.

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BLOG: Inside our holistic special task force the Patient and Family Support Service

While our nurses, healthcare assistants and doctors are the daily frontline ambassadors for St Luke’s compassionate and holistic end of life care, behind the scenes another small and highly skilled team are helping patients and their loved ones deal with the intense emotional pain and personal hardships a terminal journey can bring.

Recently renamed the Patient and Family Support Service to better reflect what the team does, this band of social workers, support workers, students and trained volunteers are multi-faceted champions, making sure those in distress are offered the help that’s right for them.

It can be overwhelming when someone learns they have a limited time to live, not just for the person themselves but for all those closest to them. At the heart of everything the team does lies the desire to make things just a little bit better for the patient and their family, amid the sadness, pressured relationships, physical constraints, mental health problems, past trauma, learning disabilities, substance abuse or financial troubles they may be facing, while also upholding their legal rights and protecting their safety.

The team’s highly experienced social workers are service manager Helen Koffi-Young, Danielle Brown, Emma Hancock and newcomer Sarah Bedaton. They are joined by social and bereavement support worker Sue Martin, children and family support worker Lisa Carter and a core of around a dozen amazing volunteers, trained in befriending and bereavement support skills. Together they are a consistent and inclusive St Luke’s presence, following people wherever their journey takes them – from hospital or home to nursing home or the hospice specialist unit.

“A terminal diagnosis makes a massive impact on the whole family and we deal with a lot of mental distress. We try to be preventative and look at people’s strengths and current support, then what support the person feels will be useful to them, what support we can give and what may be there in their network already,” explains Emma. “Recently we have observed a big impact from Covid and people getting a late diagnosis. This can impact on people’s level of emotional distress and can at times lead to crises in their mental health.

“People are not just their illnesses. The illness is something that happens to them. It’s our job to ask and really understand what matters most to that particular person and look at what their goals are, big or small. How, for example, could the day be made slightly better for them?

“We give people a voice and let them know they are heard. We let them talk about their anxieties and fears without judgment. We use active listening and empathy, helping people process their feelings about what has happened in a safe space. We use counselling skills and other therapeutic approaches, but we are not a counselling service, nor are we there to replace social services but work alongside them.

“We are involved in training and increasing awareness of safeguarding for adults and children, when there is abuse, neglect or self-neglect, and we are there as a consultancy service to support St Luke’s doctors, nurses and healthcare assistants.

“We work with social services to support people who may be subject to or at risk of abuse or neglect working to support and empower them and put them at the centre of decisions about their lives.”

At any one time the team can be dealing with as many as 150 people – patients, carers and the bereaved – building trusting relationships that can go on having a valuable impact in their most difficult days.

Sometimes it’s simple actions that make a big difference. For example, if someone has received a terminal diagnosis and doesn’t have family or friends close by, having one of the team’s befriending volunteers visit once a week for a chat, telephone regularly or take them out for coffee can help them feel they are not alone as they approach the end of life.

However, many of the situations they face are extremely complex. Even if someone’s troubles initially look straightforward, there can be a deep layer of issues beneath the surface that needs the expertise and experienced input of the team’s social workers and support workers.

For patients, the emphasis is always on understanding what is important to that person and their family. There’s an urgency to try and address matters that are causing the most anxiety, whether emotional or practical, and they work closely with other St Luke’s teams, also connecting and signposting to other agencies when it’s appropriate, such as the CAB for financial issues.

“We look at someone from the point of view of their entire life, their environment and their close relationships, and make sure they are empowered and know they have choices. We look at what can they do for themselves, physically and emotionally and try to build on their own strengths, while assessing the level of risk involved,” says Emma.

“For instance, getting themselves washed and dressed might be painful and tire someone out, but if they have a little help with the ordinary things, maybe it can free up that time and energy for something they enjoy doing.

“Sometimes a patient will have been the sole carer for someone with learning disabilities or mental health issues. Is there someone else who can look out for them? Our team have worked with many people who are looking after an adult child and worked with social services to get the support they are going to need.”

Emma, Danielle, Sarah and Helen keep an acute eye on the law and people’s human rights, especially legalities around mental health and mental capacity, elements that often come into play when deciding where someone should be cared for.

“The Mental Capacity Act is used when someone is not able to make a particular decision for themselves due to issues with their cognition,” says Helen. “It’s about upholding people’s rights while balancing their safety. If someone wants to go home, we assess if it is safe for them to do so. Is there a risk that they will fall over? Can they call for help? We always look at ways that we can try to minimise risk to enable people to have their wishes met, without being overly restrictive. For example, if someone has advanced dementia, is there someone who can support them to remain at home? We look at what we could do to get that person what they want. And if we can’t make it safe for them, we help to explore other options.”

Sustaining carers is a hugely important part of the team’s work. “It’s really important we listen to carers about their needs, provide emotional support, help them with difficult conversations around care and getting support packages from adult social care and the NHS,” adds Sarah.

The demand for bereavement support has significantly increased. When someone close has died or is going through the final stages of life, a period of bereavement support from a staff member or bereavement support volunteer can help family members with the initial stages of grief, or boost their strength to cope a little further down the line when the reality of the situation has sunk in.

“We are often working with people who are in a crisis and facing the most difficult time in their lives. We try to give continuity in bereavement support, with three initial sessions before we review their needs, and we can provide up to six where needed,” says Sarah.

Sometimes the team will need to refer the person on to an outside voluntary organisation for ongoing support, or to specialist mental health services if their distress deepens, working with partners in the community to get the right level of support for people’s individual needs.

When it’s a child or young person affected by bereavement, they will try to begin supporting them before their loved one dies, helping them to make and hold onto unique memories of that person through St Luke’s own Patches initiative. If it’s their parent, grandparent or carer that St Luke’s is looking after, they will work with their school or nursery and sometimes CAMHS NHS mental health services, to make sure there is a solid network around them and plenty of support and advice for whoever will be caring for them, especially if a child has extra needs because of a learning disability or any other additional needs.

Patient and Family Support Service may be a more fitting name for the team, but no title can adequately describe the magnitude of what they do on a daily basis, which also extends to best practice and how services are developed, teaching inside and outside St Luke’s.

Helen says: “It is a privilege that people let us into their lives and we all value the precious time they give us. I am really proud of the social workers, support workers and volunteers. They all make such a difference in the work they do and without fail are skilled, compassionate, empathic and effective advocates for the people they support.”

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BLOG: Mini ponies bring big smiles visiting patients on the ward

Tiny Shetland ponies Peanut and Wizzle spread a huge amount of joy when they trotted into St Luke’s specialist unit at Turnchapel last week.

Patients and their families were surprised but delighted when the knee-high young therapy ponies turned up on the ward, brought in by Charlotte Pine of Dartmoor Carriages at Shaugh Prior in a special visit organised with Sister Karen Thorrington.

“We have a lot of very, very poorly patients but the looks on their faces and the enjoyment they got from the visit was amazing,” says Karen. “I think some of them thought they were hallucinating!

“Peanut and Wizzle went right up to the patients and nuzzled them, and they were able to give them a good smooth. They had their heads right in the bed with one patient and he was feeding them carrots.”

Rachel Marriott, a care assistant on the specialist unit who has a lot of experience with horses, was thrilled to be there to help the visit go smoothly and witness the uplifting effect on patients and family members, as well as staff.

“It was really lovely and a huge success. Something like this brings happiness even if just for five minutes,” she says. “Animals do have a therapeutic effect on people and the ponies were so gentle, placing their noses in the patients’ hands. One man had a lot of tubes coming out everywhere and we were a bit worried the ponies might disturb them, but his face just lit up when they came in and he could feel their breath on him.”

One of the most moving responses came from the mother of a younger patient who almost missed Peanut and Wizzle. She got back to the hospice from a hospital appointment just as Charlotte was about to load them on the trailer to go home. But she stopped so the patient could spend time with the pint-size pair and it had a profound and heartwarming effect.

Rachel recalls: “The mother turned around to me and said it was the first time she’d seen her daughter smile in a long time. And that smile made such an impact on her. She said it had made her day.”

Patients on the unit will often have visits from their own pets – cats, dogs, rabbits and even, on rare occasion a lamb or a full-size horse – but this is the first time the therapy ponies have been in, and it’s something Rachel and Karen would love to see repeated regularly.

Karen says: “We were doing a lot of extra little things like this, but Covid put a stop to it all. I see this as a starter to us getting back to normal.”

Charlotte was also delighted by the response on her first visit to St Luke’s. She says: “It just gives people a little bit of sunshine, lets them see something different and it gives them something to talk about. Even if they haven’t touched the ponies personally, if they’ve seen them walk through the corridor or seen someone else with a smile on their face it can brighten their day up. It’s just lovely.”

Peanut and Wizzle joined the Dartmoor Carriages team last year and, as well as continuing their therapy work, the sturdy little ponies will be trained for carriage driving and take part in some of the other special moorland experiences Charlotte offers, including cream tea and pub outings by horse and carriage, children’s parties, weddings and proms. And they are sure to be back on the ward at Turnchapel before too long.

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BLOG: Being there was Dr Jeff’s greatest gift

Consultant and former medical director Dr Jeff Stephenson has announced his retirement from St Luke’s after two decades with the hospice. As this important era ends, we asked him what brought him into palliative care, what kept him at St Luke’s and what the future holds.

When he arrived at St Luke’s just over 20 years ago, Dr Jeff Stephenson was stepping up to his first post as a consultant, fresh-faced and full of confidence that he was going to make things better for people who were dying.

As he prepares to say farewell to both St Luke’s and his medical career, it is with the benefit of huge and humbling experience and the knowledge that he doesn’t have all the answers, the smallest things often matter most, and that St Luke’s must keep developing to achieve its aims.

“In all my time here the most valuable thing I have been able to contribute is my presence,” said Jeff. “It’s often not so much what you do, it’s about how you make people feel that is important. The tiniest act can make people feel loved and valued and accepted. Families and patients have been amazed that you spend time and really listen.”

Jeff recalls the daughter of an elderly patient being overwhelmed when he got down on his knees by the bed to talk to her mother.

“I do that a lot, but it took her by surprise. It’s about showing people that they matter, and they are not just another patient to you. And that’s much harder to do in mainstream medicine.”

Originally from County Durham, Jeff had few experiences of people dying when he was at medical school in the late 1980s and early 1990s and there was no specific palliative medicine training at that time. It was a memorable encounter with a friend that first made him think seriously about the final part of the human journey.

“There was a girl training in the year ahead of me who I knew from church. I remember seeing her two or three months into her first job in geriatric care and she was in floods of tears. She said: ‘They just keep dying on me.’ I thought perhaps I ought to get some preparation for that.”

As part of his standard training, Jeff elected to spend several weeks at a hospice in Edinburgh where he found himself working alongside a particularly enlightened and inspirational doctor. “That was the first time I had the thought ‘I would really like to be like you’.”

After qualifying, each new job and element of training took Jeff and his wife, Lois, a primary school teacher, to a different location, gradually moving further south and west. Landing in Exeter to complete his palliative medicine training, Jeff spent time working at St Luke’s and loved it. The couple were also keen to bring up their four children in beautiful Devon, settling in Ivybridge.

“There was a sense of calling to come here,” he said.

Recognising his potential, St Luke’s created a post for Jeff working alongside Dr Mary Nugent, one of the charity’s early pioneers in holistic hospice care. He grasped the challenge and never looked back, devoting his career to the collective vision of a community where no person has to die alone, in pain or in distress.

It hasn’t been an easy mission, but Jeff has been spurred on by his colleagues and the respect he has for them, as well as St Luke’s over-riding culture of compassion for all.

“I have been humbled and inspired by the people I work with and the care I see in action throughout St Luke’s, what the human potential is and how people go the extra mile for others.

“I’ve been privileged to work in an environment where you see incredible love and care being shown and that is what has kept me here.

“I have learned that people can cope with situations you would think would be unbearable and they do it with such strength and courage. No one should have to deal with some of the things my nursing colleagues are dealing with day in and day out. It’s inspiring.”

Over the decades, Jeff has seen many changes, in how services are run as well as the journeys patients take.

“As people live longer there is a lot more comorbidity now. People are living with long term conditions for far longer than they were. Ultimately all people will die, but many will now have more complex problems when end of life is approaching.

“There are so many new treatments coming online. Some of them are very expensive and offering only a few weeks or months of extra life, but people will want to be offered them. There is still a temptation to over-treat when what someone needs is a frank discussion about what is really important to them.

“One of the sadnesses is increasing bureaucracy and that we spend more and more time justifying what we are doing. It feels like we have far less time to be with people on their journey than when we started. People are coming to us later, and sicker, and there are limits to what we can do.”

Jeff has encouraged the focus of St Luke’s care to broaden out from the specialist inpatient unit at Turnchapel and into the community, with the premise that people should be able die comfortably at home surrounded by family and friends if it’s what they want and the right support is there for them. He believes volunteer power and education are vital for a sustainable future.

“We need community engagement to try and get nonprofessional sources of support for people. Going back hundreds of years, the community would gather around to support people going through dying and bereavement. There is still a lot of goodwill, talent and skill out there that could be motivated in looking after our neighbours in this difficult phase and we need to find ways of motivating volunteers.

“I think in terms of changing cultural attitudes to dying and opening up a conversation about dying, young people are the key. There is a tendency to try and hide death from children because we think they cannot cope with it. Actually, as our work in schools shows, when approached in the right way, youngsters are really well able to cope with discussions around mortality. It is the way to go over the next few years – after all, they are our future nurses, doctors and care professionals.”

There has been ongoing debate nationally about whether hospices should be entirely government or NHS funded to ensure everyone has access to the same quality of end of life care. It’s something Jeff would resist.

“Here it is all about the whole person. It is not simply the symptoms. It is all the other stuff around that. That is the advantage of being a hospice and a charity. You could argue that what we offer is essential care and it should be funded entirely by the NHS. But having charitable status gives us freedom in terms of innovation and development. Of course, we would like more funding from the NHS, but we don’t want to give up too much control. One area of development is collaborating a bit more with other hospices in our region, which we have already begun to do.

“When looked at our vision a few years ago we acknowledged that it’s no good having just a few patients getting a Rolls Royce service of excellent quality of care when others are not getting it. What can we do to make sure everyone can have an adequate level of care?

“It is not necessarily about St Luke’s providing that care, which is why education and community engagement is so important, as well as thinking outside the box about how to maintain a sustainable approach to funding. There is a limit to how much a local community can fundraise, which is why we are now looking at business ventures that are going to provide longer term income.”

Jeff did have mixed feelings about retirement, especially after the unsettling effects of the pandemic. But he says he is ready and confident that the medical team is in fine fettle to carry on the incredible work of St Luke’s without him.

“I’ve been a doctor about 30 years and working with the dying for over 20 years. I’m ready to move on, but will be sad to leave this working environment, which has been wonderful.

“The reaction of people to the fact that I’m going soon is probably the most humbling thing. I was not your typical medical director and I’m probably not your typical consultant. At times I have wondered whether I am doing a good job at all. But it’s so much about presence and obviously that has been thought to be enormously valuable by people.

“I feel lighter than a year ago at the prospect of leaving. No service is dependent on one person, but one wants to go feeling things are left in reasonable shape. It’s now looking very optimistic and hopeful.”

So, what does the future hold for Jeff after his departure at the end of April?

“Death and dying does colour your perspective and it’s now time to rediscover Jeffrey,” he said.

It’s been a year of engagements and weddings for Jeff and Lois’s children. Following the fourth wedding in 9 months in a few weeks’ time, he has a good rest planned, before embarking on his next adventure – ordination as a Church of England priest with the aim of part-time ministry. As a regular churchgoer he says he is “badging up” what he does already, swapping medical care for pastoral care.

Before that Jeff has some sincere thanks to express: “I would like to pay tribute to those I have worked with at St Luke’s, and to thank Steve Statham and George Lillie and the rest of the Senior Management Team. I have always felt enormously supported. It has been humbling and inspiring to work with everyone.”

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