History

20 Years of caring for our local community 1987 - 2007

St Wilfrid’s Hospice opened in 1987, and at that time had just nine beds. Three community nurses joined the team in 1990, and the bed number was increased to 15. Since that time we have developed our community team and now have eight nurses work in the local community.

There have been several building projects which have included:

Additional beds
Day Hospice
Education centre
Chapel

Each extension to the building has been to increase the services available to the patients, and we now are able to provide comprehensive care offering the full range of specialist palliative care. Over the years services have developed gradually as funding has become available. We have also needed to be aware that palliative care needs to be provided wherever the patients are, and to work with local colleagues. One of our first developments was to work with St Richard’s Hospital to provide specialist palliative care nurses in the hospital – and there is now a team of two nurses and other support staff.

In 1992 we added a social worker to our team. This enabled us to provide more support to our patients and their families, and also to offer bereavement care. The Patient & Family Care Team now consists of a team leader and 2 team members as well as the support staff.

Education is one of our important activities and a tutor was added to the staff in 1993. In 2000 the education department was able to occupy purpose built accommodation and the number of courses run has been able to increase.

Integration with St Richard’s Hospital is very important and since 2000 our consultants have run clinics alongside the cancer physicians and meet with other doctors to discuss patient care.

St Wilfrid’s opened with two part time doctors. In 1994 our team expanded to three and we now have five physicians, including three consultants and two doctors, one of which is a training grade.

Our day hospice is situated on the ground floor of the education building. This opened in 2000 and we are able to receive about 15 patients a day.

Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy are important to enable our patients to be as active as possible and over the years we have been able to increase the services available. We have also been able to improve the range of complementary services we can offer to people.

In 2003 our purpose-built chapel was opened – an occasion which felt rather like putting the last piece of the jigsaw in place.