Open Hospice: St Clare prepares for virtual showcase for Hospice Care Week
St Clare Hospice is opening its doors virtually to demonstrate how it has adapted to the coronavirus pandemic.
As part of Hospice Care Week next week (Oct 5-11), the hospice at Hastingwood, near Harlow, is to host two webinars on Zoom: Tuesday (Oct 6) at 7pm and Wednesday (Oct 7) at 2pm.
Various speakers will show the online audience how St Clare has developed its services during the Covid crisis. There will also be an opportunity for supporters to help the charity shape its plans.
This year, the hospice team should have celebrated St Clare's 30th anniversary and an "outstanding" grading by the Care Quality Commission, but because of the pandemic, both achievements went unrecognised. The two Zoom meetings will give the hospice a chance to mark these milestones.
Sally Muylders, community engagement manager at St Clare, said: “With the risks associated with the spread of Covid, we’ve had to restrict access to our hospice in ways that we’ve never done before in order to keep our patients, staff and volunteers safe.
“We’ve been working hard over the recent months to make sure people have access to services that meet their needs during this difficult time, which has meant doing things differently and adopting new technology to carry on supporting people.
"The last six months have been challenging and we know that the road ahead will continue to be difficult, but we will continue being here to support everyone in our local community around death, dying and loss.
“This is why, as part of Hospice Care Week, we're opening our virtual doors wide to reconnect with everyone in our local community. We want to tell people about our new services and ensure that people know there are still many ways to get involved and keep supporting St Clare Hospice.”
In lockdown, the hospice moved all of its Bereavement Café support into the virtual sphere by setting up online communities via Facebook and Zoom. Almost 200 people are now engaging in these groups, offering and receiving grief support.
The hospice’s Compassionate Neighbour programme, which brings friendship to people who are socially isolated and frail or living with a life-limiting illnesses, switched from face-to-face visits to telephone support and broadened this to offer support to staff and residents in 40 local care homes. It also delivered virtual training.
In June, with funding from the National Lottery, the hospice launched a brand new bereavement support helpline which is open to everyone in the community.
The Open Hospice events are free and open to everyone, but registration is necessary.
To register for the event on Tue Oct 6 at 7pm, visit www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/open-hospice-tickets-121649363521
To register for the event on Wed Oct 7 at 2pm, visit www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/open-hospice-tickets-121650835925
St Clare Hospice factfile
Throughout the pandemic, St Clare has continued to deliver specialist palliative care for people nearing the end of their life, whilst also supporting families and friends. This has included in the past year:
* 6,996 home visits by the Hospice at Home team
* 1,178 sessions with the hospice’s patient and family support team
* 214 admissions to the hospice’s inpatient unit
* 1,666 day therapy sessions, including physio and occupational health
* 781 people supported by St Clare's clinical nurse specialists, which included 1,437 visits and 2,529 supportive phone calls
* 54 socially isolated people matched through the hospice’s Compassionate Neighbour scheme, with 48 new neighbours joining
* The hospice has trained 38 people as bereavement facilitators and set up seven local bereavement cafés which have had 896 attendances
