Pandemic causes steep rise in demand for hospice care - North Devon Hospice

As a nurse, you get used to tough moments. You find a way through, but that doesn’t mean you’re not affected.

Here I was, faced with a man in his early forties, who had been given just a few months to live.

He had a wife and a young family; everyone’s world was about to be turned upside down. But the worst thing was, this man really should not have been dying yet…

My name is Lin and I am team lead for the community team at North Devon Hospice. We care for people in their own homes when they’ve been diagnosed with a life-limiting illness, which is essentially any illness that the person is unlikely to recover from.

It is ultimately going to take their life, but we make sure that for every moment they have left to live (and in most cases that is many months, sometimes more than a year), they are able to live life to the full.

We help to manage people’s symptoms including pain, nausea, vomiting, anxiety, breathlessness and more.

We provide hands-on care from our Hospice to home care team and of course we are also a shoulder to cry on, both for our patients and their whole family.

The best way to describe our care is supporting everyone with our special hospice hug, allowing them to feel safe, comfortable and supported.

Currently, this job is extremely difficult because the demand for our care is rising in North Devon, fast. We are seeing patients with more complex symptoms to manage, and unfortunately we are seeing them much later in their journey through their illness.

This is a direct result of Covid and the wider disruption the pandemic has caused.

With multiple lockdowns and the massive burden on the health service, some illnesses in that time were not picked up as soon as they normally would.

People might also have delayed visiting their doctors, for fear of catching Covid.

Normally they might have booked an appointment to have an unusual symptom checked out, or sought support earlier. This means so many diagnoses for illnesses like cancer happened late, and treatment was started too late to make a real difference. The hospice is currently seeing the result.

The man I mentioned earlier was one such case. His cancer was not picked up in time and suddenly it had developed to become terminal.

That is nobody’s fault at all, certainly not the fault of our health service or the man himself, it’s just an awful set of circumstances and yet another unseen consequence of the pandemic.

Our hospice nurses are stretched about as far as we can go. We desperately want to reach everyone who needs us, but the demand for our care has never been higher.

We are lucky to have an incredibly dedicated team, who always go the extra mile for the patients and families we’re supporting, so there is no need for anyone in our care to worry unduly. However, it’s important for the wider community to know the situation facing your hospice.

It feels even more precarious because donations to the charity have fallen substantially this year, with people understandably cautious about every penny in their pocket during the cost-of-living crisis. But we can only care for those local people who desperately need our support thanks to the generosity of you, our North Devon community.

Our hospice nurses are doing an amazing job under the weight of such considerable demand for their care, but sadly we know that this demand will only go up.

There are many ways to donate (which can all be found on our website), but every pound really does make a difference, now more than ever. If you can donate anything at all, it will help us be there for everyone who needs us today, tomorrow and in the future. Thank you.

Written by Lin Walkey, Community Team Lead - North Devon Hospice