St Ann’s staff appear on BBC Breakfast to discuss issues facing the hospice sector
Chief Executive of St Ann’s Hospice, Rachel McMillan and Ward Manager Louise Pinney with BBC Breakfast presenters Ben Thompson and Sally Nugent. Picture: BBC
Two members of staff from St Ann’s appeared on BBC Breakfast to discuss the challenges facing the hospice sector in the UK.
Chief Executive of St Ann’s Hospice, Rachel McMillan and Ward Manager Louise Pinney appeared on the news programme this Wednesday morning alongside presenters Ben Thompson and Sally Nugent.
The two appeared on the programme following a segment about 300 hospice beds across England not being available as they have been either fully deregistered or taken out of operation due to a shortage of funding and staff.
Louise told the BBC that it can be difficult working in the hospice as they are “lacking some resources”.
We do a huge amount for our patients. I think it's really important to say that palliative care isn't just about end-of-life care. It's about helping patients with a life-limiting illness live really well, and to do that, we've got an enormous team at St Ann's, and all hospices do. We're so lucky. You know, we have our own physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and we do such a lot for our patients. And without those resources, those are the things that disappear. So, it's the nice things that disappear, and we don't want to lose that. Louise Pinney, Ward Manager
Louise mentioned that those “nice things” are hugely important to patients at the end of their life.
“So, for example, we might get a patient who’s been in hospital for six weeks. And you know, in a hospital ward, you don’t get any sort of view of the outside or anything. So quite often, our patients will come to us and say, ‘I just want to be in the garden’, and we can do that. It’s fantastic, whether that’s on a bed or in a wheelchair,” Louise said.
“That living well and supporting patients maintaining their dignity is so, so important,” she added.
Rachel said it is “heartbreaking” that the hospice sector cannot provide these resources for everyone who needs end of life care and that hospices are “not sustainable” as a charity that relies on two thirds of its funding from the public.
“It is really challenging every day, but more recently, the challenges have been really significant. We’ve heard over the last weeks and months about hospices really struggling, and there needs to be huge reform in how hospices are funded,” Rachel said.
“We are part of the NHS, we’re part of social care, and we’re a fundamental part of that framework. So, it’s really challenging… I would like to see some sustainable commissioning arrangements across all hospice care. It has to be equal. There has to be equity. We can’t keep managing annual contracts. We can’t plan our strategies about what we need to do to meet the public demand,” Rachel added.
St Ann’s can have a waiting list for patients who require the Hospice’s services and Louise feels that “we shouldn’t have one” as people don’t have time to wait in their final days for a bed at the Hospice.
“If people need us, they generally need us straight away, and for us to kind of say, oh, well, maybe in three or four days we might. We might only be at that very last moment for them. So it’s really hard,” Louise said.
You can watch the full interview on BBC iPlayer on BBC Breakfast, Wednesday 4th December edition. The interview starts at around 7.15am.