St Luke’s Hospice in Sheffield temporarily suspends outpatient services over coronavirus fears

Bosses at St Luke’s Hospice say they are temporarily suspending all outpatient services in response to the threat posed by coronavirus.
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Managers say the precautionary measure is focused on ensuring St Luke’s can maintain its community palliative care services and inpatient centre capacity, whilst protecting the safety of patients, families, volunteers and employees.

As a consequence, regular services at its active intervention centre (AIC) and Clifford House are temporarily suspended.

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The AIC, based at the main St Luke’s site on Little Common Lane, Whirlow, provides daycare to patients with complex needs through access to tailored programmes of activities, therapies, and treatments, as well as nursing and medicinal advice over an 8-12 week period.

St Luke's Hospice, Sheffield.St Luke's Hospice, Sheffield.
St Luke's Hospice, Sheffield.

Clifford House, on Ecclesall Road South, provides a weekly programme of events for people affected by an illness that has no cure.

However, as the threat from a wider outbreak of coronavirus cases continues to increase, St Luke’s has taken the decision to halt these sessions until further notice.

“Our first priority is always the health and wellbeing of St Luke’s patients, Clifford House clients, our volunteers and employees,” said St Luke’s chief executive Peter Hartland.

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“With the developing coronavirus situation across the UK, we will be taking sensible precautions to keep our highly vulnerable patients, relatives and volunteers as safe as possible – and to maintain critical services for as long as possible.

“We believe that the actions we are taking give the very best chance of achieving this, to ensure we can help as many people as possible in the coming weeks.

“Updates of when normal services will resume will be available on our website at www.stlukeshospice.org.uk and our patients and clients will be kept fully up to date on all developments.

“In the meantime, we will be offering alternative assistance to those affected by the changes we are making, and would advise everybody to follow NHS guidelines on controlling the spread of the infection.”

For enquiries please contact St Luke’s Reception on 0114 236 9911.

St Luke’s Hospice has been running for 45 years and cares for hundreds of terminally ill patients each year.