Ian, who works on the adviceline, describes what it's like to work at the hospice and the difference his team makes…
What makes St Margaret’s Hospice the place you like to work?
The one thing I noticed from the first moment that I stepped into the hospice was how friendly everyone was. It’s perhaps not how people would imagine a hospice to be, it's such a calm building and a lovely place to work. I guess a lot of people may have an idea that a hospice wouldn’t be a happy place to be but because it’s such a caring environment and everyone buys into that, you can feel it straight away. It really is a great place to work.
When I came to the hospice for my interview, I can remember chatting away to the receptionist and thinking, wow everyone is so friendly, we got on like a house on fire, it really put me at ease and I think everyone feels that when they arrive. Nothing is too much trouble and you know that everyone has this caring ethos, their nature is caring.
What’s your average shift like?
I lead the adviceline team who answer the calls during the week, I work with a fantastic team, who all enjoy their roles and you can see that in the support they offer. It’s a really busy office, on an average day taking between 60 and 80 calls from patients, family members and other healthcare professionals. Our role is to help them with whatever query they have, from administrative to medical queries. We act as a first point of contact assessing the callers need and how we can help, and if we can’t we find out who can. It saves patients having to search for the right person and their number and makes it easy for everyone to know where they can get advice and support.
We liaise with hospitals, District Nurses and GP’s all day long, we take around 20 new patient referrals each day, we book transport. Although most of our caring is within the community, there are some patients who need to travel to the In-patient Unit or one of our outpatients’ clinics to have their medication looked at or have treatment appointments. So, my team book this transport, so they are able to attend safely and comfortable.
Each day is different, there is never two days the same. It is hard work but you get immense job satisfaction from helping people and that is felt by the whole team. The nature of the people who do this job means that is we just want to help.
For me, it’s important that we are there at the end of the phone, that patients and families can just pick that phone up and we can help, no matter what their query is.
We also deal with internal requests asking us to work with their patients to resolve queries. We might have to contact District Nurses particularly with queries about syringe pumps, organising either our community team or District Nurses to visit a patient in the community. We liaise heavily with District Nurses to ensure that between us, patients are being seen and getting the treatment and support they need. We deal with medication requests for patients between GP’s and hospitals, particularly if they have patients that need to be admitted to the In-patient Unit.
We do receive urgent calls where a patient needs to be assessed straight away and we do have a dedicated nurse specialist and a doctor that we link with to deal with any very urgent clinical cases.
What difference does St Margaret’s Hospice Care make?
Every call that we take sums up why St Margaret’s is so important, it doesn’t matter what the query is, if it’s important to that person it's important to us. Over the last year whilst COVID-19 has been impacting everyone the adviceline has continued to be there 24/7, available to anyone calling in with any query. We are here to take those calls and ensure that everyone is getting the care that they need.
We sometimes take calls when a loved one has passed away at home at which time, we will help them and support them, contacting the GP surgery so the death can be verified. We reassure them and make sure that someone is there for them. It is an important role, being the first contact when someone has died, to be that calming voice. Equally it is just as important when someone phones to ask for equipment to help them. Each query is important to the person making the call and so it's important that we are always there helping them in any way that we can.
Every single call is so important to that person, we are the people at the end of the phone, supporting, guiding, caring and being there for them. Some people may have nowhere else to turn, but we will continue to be there.
I’ve never really thought of the difference I make because I want to be here, I want to help and that goes for everyone I work with in the hospice. The hospice is so committed to the cause of helping that I really don’t see it like that.