Wellbeing Service helps remove the fear from hospice care

The service, which supports islanders living with a terminal diagnosis, aims to educate its users and enable them to live life as fully and independently as possible.

Up to 10 people – known as the Thursday Friends – can be referred on to the 12-week programme, which started in May last year.

Though it started off strong, lately it has struggled to reach capacity, and the staff would like to see more referrals from GPs.

‘We’re all living longer, which means we’re living with more complex needs,’ said Les Bourgs staff nurse Eloise Tanguy.

‘There was a definite need for this kind of support, helping people live life better. We focus on three main things – signposting, education and friendships. It’s a safe space that allows them to connect with people who can understand what they’re going through. They might not feel like they can flag their concerns at home because they don’t want to be a burden. But here they can.’

Each week, participants receive guidance and support from the hospice staff, as well as visiting healthcare professionals including clinicians, therapists and dieticians, who share ways they can manage key aspects of daily life, and care for themselves confidently at home.

Different topics are discussed each week, from nutrition and feeding to fatigue, stress and communication, working to normalise the issues they might be facing. Lunch, afternoon tea and complementary therapies, physiotherapy and beauty treatments are also provided.

The hospice ran a ‘day hospice’ for outpatients pre-Covid. It was a similar concept, but less structured and less informative and the staff found that its name put people off – that the word ‘hospice’ instils a sense of misconceived fear in most people.

‘There’s this massive stigma that the hospice is just somewhere you go to die,’ said Miss Tanguy.

‘That is absolutely incorrect. It’s so much more than that. Feedback from people was that if it was still called day hospice they wouldn’t have even considered coming.

‘This revamped version is a lot more education-focused, and is all about introducing people to the hospice and reducing that stigma. Unfortunately, because of misunderstanding about what the service is, we’ve not got as many referrals as we would have liked. Though it’s a 12-week service, rather than having no-one here, we’ve kept a couple of people who have been using it since it began last year.’

From January, Miss Tanguy said the service was going to be a strictly 12-week programme and once the users reach the end of it, they will have a graduation and receive a pack full of tools and educational facts they have learned throughout the course which they can refer back to. The pack also includes information on self-compassion and support for individuals and their loved ones, family members and carers.

One of its current users is Rodney Clough, who has been a volunteer at the hospice for 16 years. Since joining the service, he told the staff that Thursdays are now the only night of the week he ‘sleeps like a log’. But he said that he had to push for a referral.

‘My GP advised me not to, said there’s nothing in it for me,’ he said.

‘How wrong he was. There is so much you get out of it. You meet so many people you can learn from.

‘It’s great to get to know others going through the same thing, and just get some respite. It’s a happy building. I’ve had more treatments and therapies done to my body than I’ve ever had before. You all get older, it’s a pain, but that’s life I’m afraid.

‘This is a building which you might end up coming to stay in, and you couldn’t be anywhere better. The nurses and the staff are great. I’ve been cooking in the hospice for 16 years and really love it here.’