St Luke’s Hospice wins national care award

15th February 2021

St Luke’s Hospice has won the national award for ‘Contribution to Sector Development’ at the prestigious Markel 3rd Sector Care Awards on Friday 12th February.

The Hospice, which provides end of life care to people in Harrow and Brent was recognised for their Palliative Helpline and working in collaboration with the London Ambulance Service. 

The Hospice was shortlisted for the prestigious Markel 3rd Sector Care Awards in November 2020 and was also in the running for the ‘End of Life Care’ award.

Dr Charles Daniels, St Luke’s Medical Director, received the award from host Esther Rantzen during a virtual ceremony. Speaking on the accolade, Dr Daniels said: “It is a real honour, and we are all incredibly proud to have won. This award recognises the excellent work our nurses and consultants, who ensure that the people of Harrow and Brent receive the best possible end of life care and how effective is their advices to ambulance paramedics so that our patients can get the care they seek in their own homes and avoid unwanted hospitalisations.”

The Markel Third Sector Care Awards is organised by Care Management Matters and developed in conjunction with the National Care Forum.

Watch Dr Charles as he accepts the award on behalf of St Luke’s Hospice:

Hospice-funded PhD Fellowship

26th November 2020

St Luke’s Hospice and University of Cambridge create the first ever fully Hospice-funded PhD Fellowship to improve end-of-life care in care homes

St Luke’s Hospice and the Palliative & End of Life Care Group at the University of Cambridge have appointed Susannah Browne as St Luke’s Hospice PhD Fellow to research medical provision for care home residents at the end of life.

Growing numbers of adults are living in care homes, often until the end of their lives. Care homes are therefore an increasingly important location for end of life care and place of death; 22.1% of all deaths in England and Wales in 2018 occurred in care homes. There is a growing recognition that the provision of medical support for care home residents and their families may need to be adapted to reflect this.

St Luke’s Hospice and the Palliative & End of Life Care Group at the University of Cambridge appointed Susannah Browne as St Luke’s PhD Fellow to research this gap in provision and find ways to address it. The goal, according to St Luke’s Medical Director Dr Charles Daniels, is to understand more about the needs of those approaching the end of life in care homes, the care they receive, the assumptions on which this care is based and to investigate new approaches to optimise care.

Professor Stephen Barclay, Director of the Cambridge research group and international authority on palliative and end-of-life care, will supervise the new researcher, with Prof Mike Kelly and Dr Robbie Duschinsky.

Dr Daniels and Professor Barclay explained, “We understand that this is the first University PhD studentship fully funded by a hospice in the UK.”  The work, which will build on St Luke’s pioneering work in Care Homes, began in October 2020.

Susannah Browne said: “I have 18 years’ experience as a social research professional in the Civil Service, becoming a Cambridge Science and Policy Fellow in 2017. I started my career as an Academic Health Psychologist: health research was my original academic interest. I very much enjoyed working with patients, their carers and Healthcare Professionals to improve experience of Health Care. I was fortunate to go on to work for Professor Sir Mike Richards at St Thomas’ Hospital on end of life care and so have experience of St Luke’s area of interest.”

“I developed a new perspective on end of life care when I nursed my own mother at the end of her life in 2016 and found myself in the position of ‘the carer’. The exceptional care provided by her GP and the District Nursing Team left me wondering about the end of life experience of people not so fortunate in having family or a network of health care providers to help them in their last days.”

“I’m delighted to have been awarded this opportunity by St Luke’s Hospice and the Cambridge Palliative and End of Life Care Group. Optimising End of Life Care in community settings is an issue that is very close to my heart. I hope my previous academic experience, as well as the skills I bring from roles in social policy in the Civil Service, will enable me to make a significant contribution to research and policy in this important area.”

Dr Charles Daniels said: “Susannah’s appointment as St Luke’s Hospice PhD Fellow is ground-breaking. We hope it will inform our hospice team what works well, identify the gaps and the underlying causes and so generate ideas for improvement in the medical support to residents in Care Homes.”

“We believe Hospices need to play a key role in building the capabilities and capacity to improve people’s experiences in care homes. We need to start by understanding this provision better and look forward to this exciting partnership with Stephen’s team in one of the world’s top academic institutions.”

Professor Stephen Barclay said: “This partnership with St Luke’s Hospice is an important development for St Luke’s, the Cambridge research group and the wider hospice movement. There is a pressing need to develop the evidence base for Palliative and End of Life Care: all too often what we think is good for patients is only based on our opinion as clinicians, managers and policy-makers, rather than the experience of patients and their loved ones.”

“Research-active organisations deliver better patient care: research fosters a reflective and self-questioning approach and organisational culture. Susannah is already proving to be an outstanding PhD student and it is a privilege to be the academic partner in what we understand to be a first for the UK hospice movement.”

Ann – Because of you, we are!

6th November 2020

It is with heavy hearts that we share the passing of Ann Hatswell, a founder of St Luke’s and first nurse at our original site Harrow View. Ann peacefully died at the Hospice she co-founded on Wednesday 4th November. The day before she died, she was able to digitally watch the unveiling of her name on the pergola in the new memory garden in her honour. It was a very special moment.

Ann’s warmth and compassion took St Luke’s from strength to strength: from her welcoming the very first patient at Harrow View with her beaming smile to meeting the Queen who officially opened Kenton Grange in 2001. Even after her retirement in 2004, St Luke’s never left Ann’s heart.

During our 30th Anniversary celebrations in 2017, Ann said: “What is so special about St Luke’s is that it was and still is a community project – a mosaic bringing together people from all walks of life and different characters working together to make a truly special place. 

“Everybody that works at St Luke’s has St Luke’s in their hearts, and it is open to everyone. I knew right from the start that one of the most important parts of the care we gave was the little things. It is the little things that can make all the difference.” 

Ann – Because of you, we are! Thank you.

If you would like to leave a tribute message to Ann and make a kind donation, please visit https://annhatswell.muchloved.com/

“I was able to be his wife rather than his carer”

6th November 2020

“Your husband is a fiend!” said Pete. I laughed. “Well, I know that but what makes you say that?”

This was December 2013, and my husband Alan was in a hospital bed in our home, hooked up to a catheter (a tube which is passed into the bladder to drain urine) and a syringe driver (a battery-powered pump that delivers medication through a small plastic tube under the skin). He was in the last weeks of his life.

“He told me that he goes for a walk every evening and that I should help him out of bed.”

“What?! He can’t get out of bed!”

“Well, I know that now,” said Pete. “I lifted him up, noticed all the tubes and threw him back onto the bed immediately. He cackled with glee that he had tricked me!”

I pictured Alan reacting with the glee that Pete described. He never lost his wicked sense of humour, in spite of everything he went through from being diagnosed with a brain tumour aged 35 in June 2010 to his death in December 2013.

Pete was my yoga teacher Sarah’s husband and had agreed to sit with Alan while I went and practised yoga with Sarah. They were both so kind and supportive to us; Sarah even made time to do private lessons with Alan when he lost mobility in his left side because of the tumour. We had so many wonderful people who supported us, not least the team at our local hospice.

Alan was sceptical, to say the least about being under the care of a hospice. “It’s a place for old people”, he told me. I suggested we go and visit, just to see what it was like and he begrudgingly agreed. We found a place full of life and warmth, and amazing people who genuinely wanted the best for us both. Alan started regularly going for a massage and other complementary therapies.

Something that helped me immensely was having a long and in-depth conversation with Alan about his wishes. I was guided by a website called the Conversation Project, and Alan and I sat in a café and talked through lots of questions about how he wanted to be cared for, his preferred place of death and any wishes he had for his funeral. It was such a hard conversation that I remember so vividly, and which ultimately helped me to make clear decisions that reflected his wishes when he was no longer able to. Coordinate My Care is now offered by hospices and the NHS as a matter of course, which is fantastic.

Alan became very ill when we were staying away from home for a few days, and the (angel!) GP who was called was able to get him a bed at a local hospice there rather than him ending up in A&E. The hospice doctors recommended not trying to move him, but I knew he wanted to die at home and I knew I had to try to get him there. He rallied before his journey and actually loved going in the ambulance! He had a bed in our local hospice inpatient unit for a few days while the team supported me with getting ready for him to come home.

And so, he spent the last couple of weeks of his life at home, where he wanted to be. Family and friends were able to visit, and his last days were full of joy as well as sadness. He was largely pain-free and comfortable. With the remarkable support we had from the hospice, Alan’s GP and the district nurses, I was able to be his wife rather than his carer, which was important for both of us. Alan had a good death, and that is something I will always be grateful for.

I am as passionate about fundraising as I am about hospice care, and I am so proud to have joined St Luke’s as Director of Fundraising! The team here offers such an important service to the community of Harrow and Brent, and fundraising is vital to enable us to provide the amazing care we offer to our patients. We need the continued support of our community, and I hope you will consider supporting St Luke’s.

Director of Fundraising, Hannah Richardson expresses her passion for hospice care, having experienced first-hand the extraordinary difference support from a hospice can make.

COVID-19: Chief Executive Statement – Thursday 5 November 2020

5th November 2020

As we begin the new lockdown, we’d like to reassure you that St Luke’s excellent, compassionate care will continue for the people of Harrow and Brent.

We are committed to following government guidelines while maintaining all essential functions so that the Hospice continues to support the people of Harrow and Brent during this period and beyond.

Clinical Services

All of our clinical services and teams will continue to function to support as many people as we can during this time. Because of the overwhelming support of the local community, we are better prepared with a good stock of PPE and have put in place measures to make the Hospice a COVID secure environment.

Patient visits continue as they did during the initial lockdown – Visiting arrangements to the IPU

Shops

We have closed all 18 of our shops. We cannot accept shop donations at this time and ask you to please keep them aside at home, as we will gratefully accept them once we are allowed to reopen.

Our eBay shop will remain open and we encourage you to take a look – https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/stlukeshospice

Appeal to the public

St Luke’s Hospice is continuing to care for people at their homes and in the hospice. However, the second closure of our charity shops and the ongoing disruptions to our fundraising efforts may impact our ability to keep caring for people as we have been. We are asking for our local community to support us at this time.

Any donation that you can give large or small will enable us to continue to provide care for local people and keep protecting the NHS.

Make a Donation

Alpana Malde from St Luke’s Hospice appears in Leaders Council podcast

12th October 2020

The Leaders Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is currently in the process of talking to leadership figures from across the nation in an attempt to understand this universal trait and what it means in Britain and Northern Ireland today.

Alpana Malde, Chief Executive at St Luke’s Hospice, was invited onto an episode of the podcast, which also included an interview with Sir Andrew Strauss. Host Scott Challinor asked both guests a series of questions about leadership and the role it has played in their careers to date.

Alpana shared her own leadership approach, and how St Luke’s responded to the Covid-19 crisis and its devastating impact on the hospice sector. She said: “It was an honour to speak to the Leaders Council about the impact of the pandemic the challenges we will continue to face in these uncertain times.”

Scott Challinor commented: “Hosting a show like this, where you speak to genuine leaders who have been there and done it, either on a national stage or within a crucial industry sector, is an absolute honour.”

Lord Blunkett, chairman of The Leaders Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland said: “I think the most informative element of each episode is the first part, where Scott Challinor is able to sit down with someone who really gets how their industry works and knows how to make their organisation tick. Someone who’s there day in day out working hard and inspiring others. That’s what leadership is all about.”

You can listen to the podcast in full here: http://www.leaderscouncil.co.uk/members/alpana-malde

This is what it takes

2nd October 2020

The shrill ringtone on my work phone pierced the eerie silence of the world outside. No cars on the road. No people walking by. I couldn’t hear the children of the local school playing outside anymore because, well, no one was at school. The world changed in those weeks at the end of March. Life simultaneously became more insular and yet increasingly interconnected. A malevolent and life-threatening virus was amongst us and, in order to protect each other, we were forced apart; from family, friends, work colleagues and even patients.

We changed our working practices within a week, embracing laptops and virtual meetings. On these video calls, I could see into the homes of my colleagues and get a glimpse of their lives beyond work. Whilst the rooms they sat in were different, the looks on their faces were the same as I had seen in the weeks before: fear, anxiety and – as time passed – a growing emotional exhaustion. Whilst we flexed to the technological challenges easily enough (VPNs, Zoom, Skype and Teams), the human cost of COVID-19 as it swept through our borough proved beyond true adaptation.

As a palliative care nurse, I am used to having conversations with the dying and bereaved; this is what I do. However, the scale of referrals was unprecedented and the volume of discharges, to both home and care homes, alarming. Patients and their individual needs are the cornerstones of palliative care but COVID-19, at its first-wave peak, shifted that focus. Providing holistic care to patients and families forced apart during lockdown represented a very different challenge.

The fact that the dying could not have loved ones with them at the end of life created a deeper anguish and sorrow in the bereaved than I had witnessed before. Those precious, intimate moments at the end often provide great comfort to those who must carry on living. Talking with relatives robbed of the chance to hold, touch and talk to loved ones in their final days; I see this as one of the many hidden cruelties of COVID-19.

My working days were spent listening and supporting these relatives as best as I could, sometimes with meaningful silence when there were no words to say. Often they would cry uncontrollably – as the weeks went by, it became harder not to feel their tears welling up inside of me. The emotional labour, always given willingly, had never felt greater. And yet, as a team, we hung together and grew in support of each other; we listened with heightened compassion when it threatened to become too much. Our practice changed and evolved. Our skills in telephone and video assessments became more confident. Our prescribing knowledge developed. Our determination to get fast-track funding, to ensure patients had care at home where possible, increased.

What next? Like all the health professionals, we have worked incredibly hard through these uncertain times. However, as summer turns to autumn, it feels like storm clouds are gathering again. The same anxiety and fears build and we can only wait to see what the winter holds. Armed with the experience of the last six months and the support of excellent colleagues though, maybe we can feel better prepared for the battles ahead.

Elaine Sweet – Palliative Care Nurse

St Luke’s Hospice provides crucial virtual resources for families

3rd August 2020

For so many families, COVID-19 has created extremely challenging and distressing situations. The global pandemic has been a time of adaptation, unity, and strength. To assist carers who may find themselves having to support someone at home, St Luke’s Hospice produced useful video resources.

Here, Dr Lyndsey Williams, who works as a Macmillan GP with Brent Clinical Commissioning Group, praises a St Luke’s Hospice video which helped her family at such a critical time.

“Both of my parents are in the highly vulnerable category and have been shielding during the pandemic. My mother has a terminal cancer diagnosis and has been receiving palliative chemotherapy. It has been extremely difficult for us as a family to try and protect them during COVID-19. We found ourselves in a tricky situation when my mother was prescribed medication from the oncology ward.

“Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, the hospital staff were unable to demonstrate to my father how to administer the medication by subcutaneous injection. My parents were advised to visit their GP for help. However, understandably, they had reservations about attending a busy GP practice. I was also working all day with a full clinic, so was unable to support them at the time. It was then that I discovered the online video resources offered by St Luke’s Hospice – one video demonstrated how to administer medication via injection. I emailed the video to my dad and his response was: “Oh, that’s easy!” and he successfully delivered the medication! My parents were delighted as much as I was.

“The resource provided by St Luke’s not only saved health care resource, but it empowered my parents and helped keep them safe and well at home. My family are all so grateful to St Luke’s Hospice for sharing the video.”

For more information about St Luke’s Hospice online resources, please visit: https://www.stlukes-hospice.org/families-carers/resources-for-carers-during-covid-19-pandemic

“True Pride”

3rd August 2020

The word “pride” has so many connotations and uses. It has been used to describe a group of Lions and the confidence of socially marginalised groups in society (eg LGBT pride). Yet when I look back over the hospice response to COVID the overwhelming feeling I have is of “Pride”.

To me, this describes the feeling of deep pleasure I have derived from the achievements of my colleagues in the hospice and beyond in Health and Social Care. Whilst COVID has been a national tragedy at so many levels it has also enabled people to show true devotion, adaptability, innovation and willingness to go beyond.

So I look with Pride (and an element of surprise) at our ability to deliver so many, long-desired improvements all achieved contemporaneously, at speed and whilst staff were at risk. COVID or Non-COVID, it didn’t matter our staff just continued to give.

We increased the utilisation of the inpatient unit by 25% whilst at the same time introducing new infection control measures for staff who were working with an enemy they could not see and did not know. What they did know was that they were putting their own health and lives at risk. Weekend and out of hours admissions grew.

They supported patients distanced and isolated from friends and family whilst at the same time supporting friends and family held at arm’s length from their loved one’s in order to keep themselves safe. The staff all knew this was not the way they would want to be at the end of their lives and yet they had no choice.

They were wondering about the health of colleagues who were unwell, shielding or furloughed yet the quality of their care never wavered.

Similarly, our community teams introduced telephone and video consultations and adapted processes which meant the speed of response improved 3 fold. They introduced a change so that the first person a caller spoke to was a clinician able to give immediate advice and reassurance.

Where needed our Hospice at Home service still continued to go into patients homes, reassuring, caring or managing situations fraught with fear and uncertainty. Our doctors conducted procedures normally reserved for hospitals in people’s living rooms rather than transfer them into danger of COVID infection. The addition of a new 24/7 Medical Consultant Advice and guidance Line could not have been more timely.

Our team innovated a range of carer-empowerment videos and professional resources hosted on the website. We innovated kits to offer to carers who couldn’t access essentials for care. We designed and delivered 4 webinars for GPs, professionals and public attended by >350 people.

Staff were redeployed, furloughed; shielding volunteers were protected, whilst other volunteers continued to provide telephone bereavement counselling and other vital services. And we have a diverse workforce from many BAME communities who just kept going through it all.

And of course all the while the hospice backroom staff who raise the money, pay the wages, clean and maintain the building, support staff, source PPE etc. etc. still functioned despite the same challenges.

And finally the community of Brent and Harrow. The donations of PPE, sanitising gels, food, meals and more flooded in. I was proud and humbled to be part of your community who showed us how much you cared for us too.

And a final shout out for my colleagues in every nook and cranny of hospital, primary and community care, in every care home I saw with my own eyes, the dedication and compassion of what you were doing each and every day for week after week.

Yeah. I am truly Proud.

Charles Daniels
Medical Director
St Luke’s Hospice

Supporting local GPs during the COVID-19 pandemic

10th July 2020

St Luke’s expert medical team have designed and delivered three educational webinar sessions to support and educate local GPs across North West London during the pandemic. This helps GPs to improve the way they care for vulnerable and elderly people when coping with both a terminal illness and COVID-19.

St Luke’s Medical Director, Dr Charles Daniels says: “We set up these programmes because we realised that many GPs were having to help people make informed decisions about treating an infectious disease which they knew little about and how best to manage it. We also recognised that GPs were having many difficult and sensitive conversations with sick people and their relatives, and we felt they may benefit from our help and experience on how to handle these difficult talks.

“We invited two NHS hospital colleagues to explain the experiences and treatments being offered to people with COVID-19 in hospital. We used this information along with our expertise to provide useful guidance and top tips in our education programmes.

“GPs told us that this improved their ability to talk sensitively around this serious illness to someone who may be frightened and anxious about what may happen to them. We also helped GPs understand how to meet patients’ wishes and to centre and plan their care and treatment around what matters to their patients.

“Nearly 200 GPs in Harrow and Brent attended our webinars. This included the largest single attendance in Harrow for a local GP education programme. We plan to hold further educational webinar training sessions to help more GPs in our community.”