The plans will see the charity extend its services to care for significantly more patients and their families over the next five years, and just as importantly to care for them earlier.
Opening up hospice care to more people will help them to live well for longer. Isabel Hospice will offer an expanded Living Well with Isabel programme which will also include caring for a higher percentage of people living with conditions including MND and a terminal lung, kidney or heart condition.
The focus is to significantly increase the number of people that the charity cares for at home, in line with the East and North Herts CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) strategy. Home could be a care or residential home, as well as family living.
Elizabeth Paske, Director of Isabel Hospice Clinical Services said:
“We know that now, for every two people we help, there is a third person who would really benefit from our specialist care.”
“This gap frustrates us, and we aim to meet this need over the next five years by significantly extending our specialist services to help more people.
Last year 140 people benefited from the Living Well activities and sessions which included exercise and singing groups. By 2022 the hospice plans to increase this to 500 people and will be opening more Living Well Community Hubs across eastern Hertfordshire including community cafes. This will give easy access to more people who need hospice care and they will be able to dip in and out of services, receiving spells of care as they live with their terminal illness.
The hospice will be encouraging more self-referrals to Living Well group sessions and will be reaching out to people living with diseases other than cancer such as MND. As part of this expansion in services, the hospice will be employing a new specialist nurse to work with people with heart failure, and an Admiral Nurse for dementia patient care. Just this week we launched two new sessions, a creative café and Tai Chi.
Robin Webb, Isabel Hospice CEO added:
“Over the past months we have explored the things that frustrate us. These include lack of awareness and understanding of hospice care, late referrals to our services and a lack of honesty in conversations about death and dying. In response to this, we developed a new dynamic vision for the hospice which we launched last week. Our vision is of a world where communities talk openly about death and dying. Everyone lives life to the full and dies with dignity in the place of their choice, knowing their loved ones are supported. Our key strategic themes are more, earlier, educate and collaborate. These four themes will inform and drive our work for the next five years.”
For more information visit Isabel Hospice
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