Hospice Care Week highlights people who make palliative care happen

This year’s week, which runs from October 9 to 15, has the theme ‘We are Hospice Care’ and is focusing specifically on the people who work within the hospice network.

For St Luke’s Hospice in Sheffield, it is a chance to share the wide range of support offered by the charity, not just for patients but also for family and friends.

St Luke’s looks after people over 18 from across the Sheffield region, with all kinds of terminal illnesses, including end stage neurological, heart, kidney and lung conditions, cancer and HIV.

Last year, The St Luke’s Community team made 6,289 visits to patients in their own homes across Sheffield, helping to support them and the other healthcare professionals caring for them.

Meanwhile the St Luke’s In Patient Centre provided 24-hour specialist palliative care for more than 300 people.

Then there were the individual programmes of therapies, treatments and advice through the St Luke’s Patient and Family Support services, which helped over 200 patients to live independently at home for as long as possible.

Now, as the charity prepares to mark Hospice Care Week, staff from across the organisation are sharing their thoughts on what makes St Luke’s so special for them.

Naureen Khan is the St Luke’s engagement and quality officer, taking the word about the full of St Luke’s services into communities that might have little or no experience of what hospice care means.

“The people I speak to often start from the point that everything has a price tag so they just cannot believe that having this level of unlimited specialist care and attention is free but to be honest it took me a while myself to get my head around how much support there is available free of charge,” she says.

“I spend most of my time out in the community so people do recognise me now as the St Luke’s lady and that means people will come up to me and ask me questions and I will reassure them and point them in the right direction for the sort of support they need.

“We’ve supported so many families now and people are speaking about it and are doing fundraising for us – I’ve done a lot of coffee mornings and workshops in the community!

“Seeing people looked after the way they should be looked after and taking away their worry and even put a smile on their faces is very satisfying to me, knowing that I have helped make a positive change for them - that stays with me forever.”

Rob Smith is a St Luke’s occupational therapist, working as part of the Patient and Family Support Services team.

“People always ask me what occupational therapy is all about and I usually say it is about enabling independence, working with people to maintain activities and daily living,” he says.

“We also use the activities we offer to help people feel emotionally well, which is an important part of the process.

“I used to work with a Dementia Rapid Response team in Derbyshire and one of the things I did with them and one of the things I did there was help people create their own books of memories.

“It’s a really good way of validating the events of somebody’s life and I thought it would be something that St Luke’s patients could enjoy too.

“It gives them a chance to tell their stories, the things they’ve done, the adventures they’ve had, the simple but significant things like where they went to school and when they were married.

“They can supply pictures too and at the end of it you have a simple document that is a really good communication tool, that can be very therapeutic too because the process of recalling things and putting it together, telling those stories gives a real sense of validity to their life.

“I love it because you get to hear some fascinating stories about people’s lives in Sheffield, all those little stories that make lives interesting.”

Paul Clark is a St Luke’s counsellor, part of the charity’s Bereavement Support team, and came to his role after working in everything from heavy industry to hospitality.

“I am very much a people focused person and perhaps that’s why somebody suggested counselling as a role that would be good for me,” he says.

“It was a real light bulb moment for me, realising that I had something to offer people when they are at their most vulnerable.

“I feel very blessed to be a part of the St Luke’s counselling team and I feel very lucky and fortunate to be in a position to support people at some of the most difficult times of their lives.

“It’s so rewarding and it is much more than a job to be – I always say it is a real vocation.

“I love my work with a passion, I get a buzz about coming in and I learn so much from the people I am working with every day.

“It’s hugely special and can be very rewarding to be able to have a part in the book of somebody’s journey, even though I am just a couple of lines in that book.”

As St Luke’s reception coordinator Catrina Bonnington is quite often the first person patients and visitors to St Luke’s will meet on their arrival.

“I came to St Luke’s 13 years ago, just to do a temping job because somebody was having a hip replacement – and I’ve been here ever since!” she laughs.

“As reception coordinator, I make sure all reception shifts are properly covered and I also supervise training and support the team of course.

“From the patient perspective, my team covers all aspects of the patient journey, everything from phoning people to say we have a bed available, right through to arranging for funeral directors to come in.

“We meet people in the many stages of the process and people do deal with things very differently – they might be scared, anxious, upset or angry even and we are there to make things easier for them and to make sure that everybody we meet is treated with compassion.

“People who come through our door know why they are here and they don’t need reminding of that every single minute of the day so a sympathetic smile is all some people need and sometimes a little bit of chat about something trivial can make things a bit easier.

“You have to react promptly to the person in front of you – and that doesn’t always mean smiling. What it’s really about is judging people’s emotions and reacting properly to that emotion.

“I love my job and I always feel that if we are making a person’s day better for even just five minutes then it’s been a good day.

“The thing the team is so often told is that it’s great to see our smiling faces when people walk through the door – it’s about recognising people, greeting them appropriately and understanding the situation they are facing.

“People judge the hospice by how they are greeted the first time they visit and I like to feel that the whole family is taken care of by our reception team.”

George Ashley has been a St Luke’s housekeeper since he first came to Sheffield from Ghana in 2009.

“I was thinking when I arrived that I’d be furthering my education but when I got this job I just felt like this was what I really wanted and needed to do,” he says.

“There’s a lot of cleaning to be done but apart from that the job can include everything from making beds and even sorting flowers for patients.

“I enjoy the fact that being a housekeeper means you don’t just do one thing. We do all sorts of things which means it isn’t the same thing every day and you’re never sure what is going to be happening next.

“We liaise with other departments, the doctors and nursing teams for instance, making sure that cleaning doesn’t clash with the medical care.

“But one of the things I really like is that we always have the time to chat with the patients – they don’t see the difference between the doctor and the housekeeper, they just enjoy having somebody to talk to.

“It’s nice when a new patient comes in and you get the chance to get to talk to them and their families.

“And I also like that we are all working together as a team – housekeepers, doctors, nurses, everybody – you don’t always get that atmosphere anywhere else.”

To find out more about St Luke’s Hospice and its full range of services and support visit stlukeshospice.org.uk