Jenny’s 30 years of making someone’s day a bit better

20th December 2024

A welcoming face for 30 years

A friendly face and a warm welcome are exactly what our patients and visitors need when they arrive at St Luke’s and one special team member has been answering that important call for the past 30 years.

As our senior receptionist, Jenny Nicol is often the first person people meet when they come to Turnchapel, but her original role at the hospice – and one she held for almost half that time – was actually as a health care assistant on our inpatient unit.

Spending a significant period on the clinical frontline means Jenny has a special insight into how patients and their families feel, their worries and their fears, and how she can help make them feel more comfortable with exactly the right words and a calming atmosphere.

Precious memories

Three decades on, as she walks around St Luke’s, she carries with her very precious memories of “all the lovely people” she has met over the years and a sense of how the hospice has kept changing with the times to offer the best services for the community.

Jenny said: “Being here has been a big part of my life and it gives me purpose. It’s not just a job for me – I am quite passionate about it. I can walk out happy at the end of the day if I have done the smallest thing to make somebody’s day better.”

A Devon girl through and through, she arrived at St Luke’s back in December 1994, when computers were still clunky new-fangled things, and the worldwide web was in its infancy.

Drawn towards palliative care

It was the year the first winning National Lottery ticket was drawn, Oasis released their classic first album Definitely Maybe, the Channel Tunnel was officially opened, Four Weddings and a Funeral was released in UK cinemas and, in Plymouth, the doors opened at Marsh Mills Retail Park.

Then aged 24, Jenny had been working at the Royal Marsden world-renowned specialist cancer hospital in London but was keen to get out of the capital.

“I went travelling when I was 21, spending a year living on a kibbutz in Israel. When I came back, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, and I sort of fell into work as a healthcare assistant,” she said.

“My cousin worked at the Royal Marsden, and I ended up with a job on the gynaecology ward. I was there for two years. I absolutely loved the job, but I didn’t like London.”

Jenny felt drawn towards palliative care, so she wrote a letter to Rosie Morgan, who was then the Matron at St Luke’s. After being invited in for an informal chat she was delighted to be offered a job.

“Apart from the inpatient unit, the hospice was completely different back in 1994. The reception wasn’t where it is now. The layout was different, and some bits hadn’t been built yet,” recalled Jenny, who never trained as a nurse, but gained all her health care assistant qualifications.

‘It felt natural and rewarding’

“I loved looking after the patients and spending time with them – it felt natural, and I found it very rewarding.”

She even met King Charles – then the Prince of Wales – when he visited on a couple of occasions.

“I remember the patients were all really excited and Charles was very polite and nice. We were each allocated a patient to sit with as he came around to talk to them.”

Jenny was also one of the first health care assistants to pilot St Luke’s “hospice at home” service, going out to see patients in their own homes. The trial wasn’t continued at that time, but she’s watched with great interest as our community teams have developed over the years.

“I never stopped loving that job, but after about 15 years I got a little bit of burnout and felt I needed some time doing something else. The hospice has always been very good to me and for a year they let me spend half my time nursing and the other half working with the fundraising team,” she said.

“I realised that I enjoyed stepping away to do something different so when a post came up on reception I applied, and I have been there ever since. Working here, I believe you see the best in people. Coming through the door they can be at their lowest ebb and feeling very vulnerable. Sometimes you see their angry side, but I feel a deep understanding and empathy for them.

“I don’t have personal experience of terminal illness or lots of bereavement, but I do have empathy and I just want to help people and give something back. When someone comes to the reception desk, I want them to feel at ease. A lot of people tell me that they instantly feel relaxed, and that the hospice is a lovely environment. It is definitely not a sad place.”

These days Jenny works part-time, three days a week. In her spare time she loves to go on adventures with her husband, Mark, in the campervan he converted himself.

“I love to travel and my husband flies paragliders, so we often end up going to flying sites around Wales, Cornwall or Scotland, and sometimes abroad to The Alps.”

Jenny doesn’t fly these days, but she especially enjoys long walks with her dog, Dylan the labradoodle, who she describes as “adorable”.

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