St Clare HospiceOur care and servicesHospice at Home expands so more people can be at home

Hospice at Home expands so more people can be at home

More people with terminal or life-limiting illnesses are being cared for at home by St Clare Hospice following the expansion of our Hospice at Home service.

Published on: Thursday 11 Jun 2015 at 11:18

The service is now available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and the Night Service, initially introduced in December to provide overnight support during the winter months, is also continuing.

In its first year after launching Hospice at Home in January 2014, the St Clare team provided hands-on, personal care for more than 300 patients in the final weeks of life or times of crisis, making over 1,600 face-to-face visits. Unnecessary hospital admission was avoided in 3 out of 4 cases. Also, the service has provided transition support when a patient can be discharged from hospital, but the necessary care is not yet in place.

With demand expected to continue to grow, St Clare aims to more than double the number benefitting from the service to 720 patients a year, caring for patients who are very near the end of their lives or who have symptoms that are difficult to control.

“We are celebrating 25 years of hospice care in West Essex this year and the vision has always been to enable people to remain at home, if they wish,” said St Clare Hospice chief executive Tanya Curry. “Working together with the commissioners and our health care partners, we are delighted to be moving a step closer towards our goal of providing high quality specialist palliative care at the right time, in the right place, for every family who needs it.”

Clare Morris, Chief Officer at West Essex CCG said: “When people are reaching the end of their life, hands-on, personal care is even more important. That is why we are working closely with St Clare Hospice to ensure that we support the needs of people and their families during a sensitive and emotional time. By extending the Hospice at Home service, we’re ensuring that people can die with dignity in their place of choice.”

One lady who has experienced the St Clare Hospice at Home service said: “It was a terrible, terrible blow to lose my husband from my life, but I have really happy memories of our last few days together at home thanks to the support we both received from the St Clare team. He was fiercely determined to stay at home. It’s where he’d always lived, and the St Clare nurses were just wonderful. So kind and knowledgeable; I knew he was in safe hands. They kept him as comfortable as possible and spent lots of time talking to us about what was going to happen, helping us not to be afraid of the future. It was such a relief to be able to hand over his care to someone I knew I could trust, right from the start.”