Back to the Future – Part VI – Building and nurturing relationships

Categories: Leadership and People & Places.

The stories of enduring relationships between individuals, families and networks with the hospice abound. Some describe meaningful connection with St Christopher’s for over 60 years starting as a child, comprising a rich blend of service, friendship and engagement with services.

These relationships underpin an appreciation and confidence around end of life – perhaps what we would describe as death literacy today.

Individuals whose contribution to the hospice was long term and highly valued were acknowledged as such, culminating in privileges such as attendance at prestigious formal events.

They were encouraged to believe that the hospice would support them in any hour of need, as they had supported others, and there is evidence that such a promise was kept as people become unwell and needed care towards the end of their lives.

Relationships between funders and the hospice are often underpinned by personal and reciprocal connections. Stories are told of moments when in support of the hospice, individuals also received unexpected care or help.

By way of example, one long-term supporter describes how, in the course of a fundraising event she was running, her recently bereaved mother received unexpected and skilled guidance related to her bereavement which she experienced as life changing.

Many of the early leaders and wider workforce at the hospice enjoyed a personal and enduring relationship with Cicely Saunders. Some staff talk about visits of Cicely Saunders to their homes (even those abroad) and of concern on her part regarding their personal lives and aspirations. They remained connected well beyond formal employment with the organisation and the reciprocity of interest is clear.

Individuals talk of visiting Cicely Saunders when she became less well as part of an enduring relationship that they had with her. Stories of the relationships between staff at the hospice, particularly in the early days, suggest a strong personal component in addition to any formal connection. Staff talk about the availability and interest of Cicely Saunders and other leaders in this context regardless of their busyness and importance.

Long-term and highly impactful connections between individuals and the hospice, often critical to the development of the hospice, can often be traced back to formative relationships established with Cicely Saunders in the early days of St Christopher’s or its conception.

Many people talk of meeting her at medical school, then being drawn back to work with her again, as part of her plan to develop
St Christopher’s. Some of them went on to become recipients of care, for themselves or family members in an organisation in which they had invested heavily.

There is repeated reference to her ongoing presence and participation in the life of the hospice and how people related to her as an inspiring pioneer, founder of the hospice, professional colleague, friend and latterly as someone who became a patient at St Christopher’s.

Repeated stories are told about individuals’ involvement in her care towards the end of her life, what people were doing at the time of her death and its impact in the moment.

It is part of the richness of their memories.

The relationships formed across individuals within the hospice workforce (staff and volunteers) remains a striking theme in many interviews that describe the experience of working at the hospice today.

People describe the value they and others ascribe to the strength of community and connection between individuals who work for the organisation today.

Those relationships extend beyond the hospice to engage supporters and involve them in the life of the hospice.

By the same token, supporters mention events in which they were made to feel part of the organisation, they describe opportunities ascribed to them to get to know staff and volunteers and to became confident that through their connection with the hospice, they could improve the experiences of those facing end of life or loss.

The humour and friendship experienced as part of daily life on the part of workforce sustained individuals in their role and helped them overcome the emotional challenges experienced through the job.

“One of the patients that I met was a lady called Mrs Medhurst, I have a feeling she was one of the first people at St christopher’s.

She was the one that I went up with the trolley and I said ‘A cup of tea?’ and she said ‘Yes and I’ll have five grains of sugar’. And I looked her and I said ‘How am I going to count five grains of sugar?’.

The rest all burst out laughing and they said ‘She’s only pulling your leg’… That rapport with the patients carried on”

– Mavis Bird – former Auxiliary Nurse, St Christopher’s Hospice.

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This is the sixth in our serialisation of “Back to the Future – Reflections on an Oral History of St Christopher’s Hospice”

Part I – Introduction

Part II – Being Prepared to be Radical

Part III – Responding to the Experience of Suffering

Part IV – Supporting Innovation

Part V – Hospice as a Way of Life

 

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