Men’s Day Out – 12km Charity Walk • Pint • Pasty • Rugby
With her signature blend of nature-inspired creativity, her passion for protecting the environment and her strong sense of community spirit, Plymouth artist Ellie Johnson, aka Mrs Murals, is a beacon of enthusiasm for St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth’s Guiding Lights art trail and auction spectacular that’s set to dazzle the city’s streets in summer 2026.
As one of two launch artists, alongside St Luke’s patron and celebrated city painter Brian Pollard, in May Mrs M proudly unveiled the design she created for a small scale lighthouse that will travel to different locations across South West and West Devon and into Cornwall in the lead-up to the event, encouraging public engagement and support for the hospice.
Clinical Nurse Specialist Jamie Jennings has made it a hat trick for St Luke’s after receiving the prestigious title of Queen’s Nurse.
It’s a title currently held by only 3,000 nurses in the UK – including St Luke’s Nurse Consultant Jen Nicholls and Clinical Nurse Specialist Debbie Hutchinson – and it represents a commitment to the highest standards of patient care, learning and leadership.
Here at St Luke’s, our services go beyond hands-on care. One important strand to our work is educating and empowering people in what good end of life care looks like.
Daniella Bright is our first overseas student studying our online module titled ‘Enhancing end of life care and palliative care practice’ in collaboration with the University of Plymouth. The aim of the module is to enable health and social care practitioners to develop a critical and reflective approach to caring for those living and dying with a life-limiting condition.
Daniella has been using her learning to assist her in her role as a Night Sister at St Bernard’s Hospital in Gibraltar, where she has been working since qualifying as a Staff Nurse back in 2013. Prior to her role as Night Sister, she was the Charge Nurse of the hospital’s Rehabilitation Ward.
Highly skilled, kind and present even when situations are heartbreaking or difficult, our nurses are a special breed. We appreciate them every day, and this International Nurses Day (12 May), we want to say an extra-big thank you to them for everything they do in, and for, our community.
We spoke to St Luke’s Community Nurse Specialist Sonja Hambly about her role and what motivates her to work in an environment many would shy away from, perhaps perceiving it as too tough on their emotions.
For many, death is a taboo subject, avoided and dodged until it happens to you. This week is Dying Matters Awareness week (5-11 May), an opportunity to open up conversations about death and dying and break down the taboos surrounding it.
The theme this year is ‘The Culture of Dying Matters’, focusing on how different communities and cultures in the UK feel, talk about, and deal with death and dying – and what brings them together. Our Digital Communications Specialist Gabby Nott has been exploring the idea of death across cultures in our local community.
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.
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.
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.
They say there’s strength, as well as safety, in numbers, especially when you’re in the company of people who share the same aspirations and goals.
That must explain the overwhelming sense of empowerment, togetherness and possibility at the recent Hospice UK conference, where hundreds of us gathered with the common aim of making sure excellent palliative and end of life care is available for everyone who could benefit from it, wherever they live in the UK and whatever their circumstances.
