Runners across Plymouth will be lacing up for St Luke’s on Sunday 11 May as they get ready to take to the streets of Plymouth for Run Plymouth’s half marathon, 10km and 5km at Britain’s Ocean City Running Festival. We will be meeting some of the runners who will be taking on the challenge in aid of St Luke’s as they share their stories.
t’s hard to imagine St Luke’s without the inimitable Frankie Dee, a dedicated and inspirational nurse whose wealth of hands-on experience and management knowledge led her to become our Head of Quality and Compliance, monitoring, safeguarding and promoting the high standards of end of life care we offer patients and their families.
But, after 35 years, Frankie says the time has come to say a fond farewell to the organisation she has proudly helped to be the best it can be, and to the career that has taught her so much about what’s really important in life.
An incredible 2,500 men took to the streets of Plymouth on Saturday, striding out to honour their much-missed loved ones and show their support for the independent charity that provides specialist end of life care for local families.
Sunny skies made an unexpected appearance as the biggest gathering yet of big-hearted chaps of all ages turned out for St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth’s Men’s Day Out, setting off from Plymouth Albion rugby ground at Devonport to walk 12km along the waterfront and through the city – a reversal of the route to ring the changes for regular participants.
A premier southwest car dealership is continuing to go the extra mile in support of St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth.
With the hospice facing the challenge of delivering its specialist end-of-life care in an increasingly tough financial climate, big-hearted business Roger Young – which opened its Suzuki dealership in Saltash in 2024 – has stepped up to lease five smart new Suzuki vehicles to the charity at a specially discounted rate.
When local crafter Elaine Pluckrose found herself at our specialist unit, it wasn’t going to put a stop to her creative ideas.
Elaine runs a Callington based craft group called ‘This, that and chat’, although as she puts it “it is more about chat than this and that”. The group meet on a Tuesday morning and from sewing and crocheting to art and sea glass painting, the talented crafters are always hard at work creating their masterpieces.
But their latest creations have been inspired by Elaine’s stay at our specialist unit, sewing syringe driver bags for our patients.
Staff at St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth are celebrating a top rating of “Outstanding” from the Care Quality Commission, the official government body responsible for assessing and regulating all England’s health and care providers.
The CQC report, issued this week following their autumn 2024 inspection, acknowledges that St Luke’s services, delivered in the community and at its specialist unit at Turnchapel, are performing “exceptionally well”, with consistently positive feedback received from patients, their families, staff and partner organisations.
When St Luke’s clinical nurse specialist Debbie Hutchinson received her prestigious Queen’s Nurse badge and certificate at a ceremony in London recently, there’s one special person she would have loved to be with her to witness the occasion. Debbie’s late husband, Al, was always 100 per cent behind her ambitions, encouraging her to go for her dreams, and always over the moon when she reached her goals. Knowing that he would have been bursting with pride was one of the main reasons she decided to go through the rigorous assessment process to become a Queen’s Nurse.
Traditionally, there’s only one ‘Boxing Day’ per year, but that’s set to change when St Luke’s introduces a new concept to its large, city-centre retail outlet in January.
From Saturday 4 January, customers browsing the good-quality, preloved clothing on the rails at our Western Approach charity shop will be invited to ‘fill a box for a fiver’ or a larger one for a tenner. Not only will the scheme save buyers precious pounds as they replenish their wardrobes, it will also help protect the planet by keeping more clothes out of landfill*. And crucially, as with every sale the shop makes, funds raised will support the specialist end-of-life care we provide for local families affected by terminal illness.
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”.
