The Warrington Hospice at Home scheme has been running for over 5 years now and is headquartered at St. Rocco’s. It fits in with our ‘hospice without walls’ ethos and is now a key part in providing outreach services to the Warrington community.

Patients referred from the Hub

We recently caught up with Lynne Wright, the Hospice at Homes team leader to find out more about how to access this important service and see exactly how it works. “Patients are normally referred to us by the Warrington Integrated Palliative care hub,” she explained.

“This allows us to get to people earlier and provide support for longer. Although we are based in the Hub at St. Rocco’s, we still work very closely with Macmillan and district nurses to ensure the patient has access to all the services they are entitled to receive. We also work with other agencies to provide funding and specific care packages that fall outside of our remit.”

Night Sit

Night Sit is the service provided directly by Hospice at Home in Warrington and this is funded by Continuing Healthcare, an external private agency. “Night Sit starts at 10pm when one of our healthcare assistants arrives at the patient’s home,” Lynne continued. “It is designed to help with meal preparation, personal hygiene and the administration of medicine, giving a break to the family and other close carers.

“We want to make sure the patient is comfortable in bed and is fed according to their needs. As well as helping administer their medication, we can also contact the out-of-hours team of district nurses if extra is needed. And of course, we are there to help comfort and reassure the family if the patient passes during the night.”

Early contact vital

“We can provide this service for weeks and even months,” Lynne concluded. “We would rather people contacted us as early as possible, even if they do not need us straight away. This way we can provide advice and even visit their homes to reassure them what it is they will be getting. It is important people realise that we are a small team and so the care service we provide is very personal.”