We are delighted to be sharing the latest edition of St Clare News with you today. If you haven’t seen our latest newsletter already, please see the bottom of this page for a link to view our PDF version. You can also sign up to receive future mailings here too.
From welcoming back our outpatients and volunteers to the Hospice site, to new and improved projects and fundraising activities taking place this winter, this edition of Hospice News will keep you up to date with everything going on here at St Clare Hospice.
We also wanted to share Rachel’s story with you today. Rachel has been a Staff Nurse on our Inpatient Unit for 12 years and wanted to tell you what it has been like working at the Hospice throughout her whole nursing career. Please see her story below.
Rachel’s Story
My name is Rachel and I have been a nurse on the Inpatient Unit here at St Clare Hospice for 12 years. I fell in love with St Clare when I was training to become a
nurse at just 18 years old. As a student nurse, the initial thought of being sent to a
hospice frightened me – I had no experience of hospice care and I didn’t know what it would entail.
However as soon as I arrived and met the team and the patients, I instantly knew that St Clare was where I wanted to work in the future. Shortly after qualifying as a registered nurse, a job came up for a staff nurse at St Clare and I jumped at the chance – and was lucky to get the role.
The special thing about hospice nursing is how you can make such a difference to people’s lives. We have limited time with our patients which means we have a small time frame to get their care absolutely right and to sometimes completely change their experience. Although this can be challenging, it is also very fulfilling and rewarding as a nurse.
In the time I have been at St Clare we have become much busier, patients have more complex symptoms, and the need for beds is increasing. We care for people with a wide range of conditions, not just cancer, including motor neurone disease, heart failure, and lung disease. This means that more specialist palliative care nurses are needed in the Hospice now, than ever before.
As a charity, St Clare only receives limited funding from the NHS meaning that we rely on our local community to keep our hospice services running. We need your help to fund the additional nurses needed in our Inpatient Unit – any gift you can give today will help us continue to support people to die with dignity, not in pain, and in the place they choose.
Thank you for caring about your local hospice.
Best wishes,
Rachel
Rachel Law, Staff Nurse
Keep up to date with us
If you did not receive the latest St Clare Hospice News please read our online version here.
If you would like to make sure you receive our next edition of Hospice News, and on-going fundraising communications throughout the year, please call our Fundraising Team on: 01279 773 750 and ask to be added to our database. Thank you.