Plymouth’s St. Luke’s hospice day care centre to close

Plymouth’s St. Luke’s day care centre, which provides support for more than 70 patients, is set to close. The decision has been made by the charity to enable it to focus resources on patients with more immediate needs.

The Atrium, based at Pearn, provides various services for patients, including bathing facilities, a hairdressers, meals and activities such as bingo, arts and crafts and performances from outside groups.

Hospice chiefs said that up to six members of staff are in consultation as a result of the announced closure and it is hoped they will be redeployed within the charity.

The centre is currently open from 10am until 3pm Monday to Friday, but is planned to close at the end of March, saving the charity £250,000 a year.

The money saved will help hundreds of patients who need end of life care.

George Lillie, director of clinical services, said: “We’re looking to have an impact much bigger than we are able to provide now.

“Closing the day care centre isn’t about saving money, it’s about re-directing that money into services which have a greater need.

“We are moving forward with the vision for the hospice and are freeing up resources to better deal with changes in the future.

“The need for our services is going to increase in the next five to 10 years. It’s a hard decision for us.”

Although the centre only moved to its current site in 2006, St Luke’s Hospice is keen to focus on the end of life palliative care which it was originally set up to provide.

The charity says many more people will be able to be cared for in their home, where most people want to stay, with the money that will be saved from the closure of the Atrium, which currently costs £1,300 per day to run.

Although patients contribute £33.50 per day towards their care at the centre, either from their own pocket or through funding, the charity still supplements the care by around £60 per patient per day.

ST LUKE’S STATEMENT IN FULL

OVER the past two years St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth has been reviewing and shaping its services to deliver its vision of “a community where no person has to die alone, in pain or distress”.

We are very aware that our current population will grow significantly over the next 10- 20 years, with an increasing number of people living well into their 80’s. It is predicted that by 2035 more than 3.5 million people will be aged 85 and over, an increase of over 2.1 million. Unfortunately with old age comes increasing ill health; with people dying of more than one illness, leading to complications and greater demands on health care services.

In addition the number of people living alone is set to double in the next 20 years; placing further stress on families and social care provision. These predicted changes in our population have been further highlighted in a recent report from ‘Help the Hospices Future Ambitions for Hospice Care’; which clearly defines a challenging future for hospices in order to meet the need for specialist end of life care for our future patients and their families.

This may seem like a gloomy outlook. However, at St Luke’s we strongly believe that people should enjoy life no matter how short, with dignity, choice and freedom from distressing symptoms. We know that it is our duty to raise awareness and to educate the wider community; to prepare and support each other to ensure we all have a good death. Hospices have always had a reputation for leading the way within specialist end of life care, and if we do not change now to embrace these future challenges we face future irrelevance.

Research shows that people would like to die at home or within a hospice setting. Mortality data suggests the majority of people don’t die in their preferred place of choice. With this in mind St Luke’s will be further developing its vision of a “Hospice without Walls” by providing and supporting quality end of life care no matter where, with a greater emphasis on community care within the person’s home. In addition we will continue to provide In patient unit support and hospital services for patients with complex care requirements.

With our vision in mind, we have reviewed all of our services to ensure we provide specialist care for as many local people as possible in the last years, months and days of life. We have come to the conclusion that continuing to operate a day care provision is not sustainable. This has been a difficult decision, but we have reached this conclusion because this is not a specialist service and many of the recent referrals are for patients with generalist needs rather than the need for hospice care. Furthermore we would need to significantly invest and subsidise this service to meet the growing needs and demands of this patient group.

We are aware this decision will cause upset. However, we need to reach a wider group of patients to ensure that our local population can and will die well.

All service users have been notified of these changes and we are currently working with other organisations to identify suitable alternative services. Staff affected by these changes, wherever possible, will be re-deployed together with the volunteers who have supported day care over the years.

Even though this has been and will continue to be a difficult transition for all concerned, we will ensure that all affected people will be supported throughout the implementation of this change and we would like to thank the staff, volunteers and patients of our day care service for their dedication and commitment.