St Luke’s Hospice provides crucial virtual resources for families

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