St Leonard’s Hospice: where the caring never stops

IN the day-care centre at St Leonard's Hospice, Colin Butterwick is tucking into a lunchtime glass of sherry.

"It's like a first-class hotel in here," he says, tipping volunteer helper Nancy Fairbotham a wink. "The food is marvellous."

And so is the sherry, clearly. The 86-year-old has been regaling Nancy with stories of his National Service days. Where did he serve, someone asks, Palestine? "Oh, somewhere far worse than Palestine," he says. "Catterick!"

The retired mining engineer has been living on his own at home in Barlby since his wife died 15 years ago. He has chronic heart failure, his kidneys and liver aren't functioning properly, and he's recovering from bladder cancer. But he's kept his sense of humour – joking with Nancy and charming the nurses.

He's been admitted to St Leonard's so that his medication can be assessed and sorted out, and staff can work out what sort of help he will need if he goes back home. "Which hopefully I should do," he says.

He admits that when it was first suggested he should come to St Leonards, he was dreading it. "My perception was maybe the same as what yours would be," he says.

"I was concerned at that word 'hospice'."

But he hasn't for a moment regretted it.

Within an hour of being admitted, he'd been offered a glass of sherry by Nancy. "And I realised how pleasant it is in here," he says.

"Everybody here is just wonderful, they really are. I pretended I could manage myself at home, but then I thought 'Colin, you've been kidding yourself a bit, and you're not helping yourself'."

Anybody who's visited the hospice cannot help but have been struck by the extraordinary warmth of the place. Yes, the people being looked after here have what staff call 'life-limiting' illnesses, for which there is as yet no cure – although many patients, after having their pain relief and other medication sorted out, will be able to go home again.

Yet there is a lightness about the place – a sense of calm and ease and friendship that is almost tangible. "It is not a place of sadness," says Colin.

"It is hardly a place of hope, exactly, because we all know...but it is acceptable. They help us to accept it."

Nancy Fairbotham agrees. The 83-year-old has been a St Leonard's Hospice volunteer for 18 years, ever since her husband, Noel, passed away at the age of 69 of prostate cancer.

They'd been married for 44 years and she was lost when he died, she admits. "I think we had an argument every day of our lives – but I'd have him back."

She went for a walk one day, and ended up in the Acomb St Leonard's Hospice shop, looking through the bric-a-brac for something to do. "There was a lady in there, and she was saying to somebody how they were always looking for volunteers. And I just said 'what do you have to do to be a volunteer?'"

She's been with the hospice ever since, one of its 500-or-so volunteers, working in the Acomb charity shop and doing a regular evening shift at the hospice itself.

Her own husband died in York Hospital, she says. And there was one nurse in particular she has never forgotten. "She said 'Come on, I'll go with you for your tea.' I will remember that nurse forever."

The hospice is like that, she says. "The nurses are fabulous. There's no melodrama, no misery. It's easy, pleasant. It's a place of ease."

The idea for a hospice in York was first raised in 1978, by four local nurses. A steering committee was set up, a site in Tadcaster Road identified, and in May 1982 the then Archbishop of York Stuart Blanch launched a £750,000 appeal to build the hospice.

The hospice took its first day day patients in 1984, and then, on February 11, 1985 – 30 years ago today – the first in-patients were admitted. The building was officially opened in June that year by the hospice's patron, the Duchess of Kent. There were only eight beds initially. It quickly expanded to 16 – and then, following the Hospice 2000 Appeal launched with the Evening Press in 1998, to 20.

The original nurses’ station

Today, it is a wonderfully bright, calming place, with 16 single bedrooms and one four-bed room, all ensuite and all recently refurbished. There are pleasant gardens; a chapel; a lovely garden room; winter sunshine pouring in through large windows.

Chief executive Martyn Callaghan won't hear anything said against the NHS. It is brilliant, he says. But a hospice such as St Leonard's provides something that no hospital can, however caring and dedicated the staff. Space, and calm, and the sort of one-to-one care that hard-pressed hospital nurses could only dream of giving.

"We're not about bleeping machines," he says. "We're about people. We have great quality nursing staff and very good staffing ratios: about one nurse to every 2.5 beds. A hospital cannot provide that."

One of the great things about the hospice is that, while it has the expertise, equipment and know-how to deal with patients with very serious and complex conditions, it doesn't feel clinical, says Sue Taylor, the hospice's 53-year-old senior sister. It isn't full of tubes and gadgets and beeping lights. It's a much calmer, more home-like environment than that.

 Volunteer Mike Bailey  

That is important. Because often, the people who come here – or their relatives – can be frightened. The very fact that they are here is an acknowledgement that they are seriously ill.

"But very quickly, when they come through the door, they turn from fear to trust to relief. We can't possibly know what they are going through, but we can have a fairly good guess. We want this to be a place where they have a feeling of safety."

She's been a nurse at the hospice ever since it first opened 30 years ago. Nobody quite knew what they were getting into then, she admits. "We were all new together. Nobody had ever worked in a hospice. But all I could say was that I just felt that the way people were dying... it just wasn't good enough.

"In hospital, they were put in a side room. I was always told that it was for their privacy, and it was. But they were in a side room in every sense."

There are no side rooms at St Leonards. Many of the people here may be nearing the end of their lives. "But it is about saying you still really matter, can still make choices, still have options," Sue says.

The 2015 campaign

Today will be just like any other day at St Leonard’s. There are no plans for a big 30th birthday celebration. That will come in June – the anniversary of the official opening by the Duchess of Kent, when there will be an anniversary service at York Minster.

The Duchess of Kent at a patient’s bedside in 1985

But the hospice will actually be marking the anniversary all year – and will be launching a new fund-raising campaign, “St Leonard’s Care Everywhere”.

Some patients prefer to die or be cared for at home, says Martyn Callaghan. So four years ago St Leonard’s successfully launched a new Hospice@Home service, in which community specialist nurses visit patients in their own home. Last year, the hospice treated about 500 patients at home, compared to 350 in the hospice itself.

 St Leonard’s Hospice chief executive Martyn Callaghan 

The home service can range from staff dropping in on patients to check their medication and make sure they are OK, to longer visits and even providing overnight at-home care.

The St Leonard’s Care Everywhere fundraising campaign, which will be launched soon, will aim to raise £30,000 in the hospice’s 30th year to provide three support vehicles for Hospice@Home.

To find out more about the campaign, to make a donation, or to become a volunteer, phone the hospice on 01904 777777.

Fact file

ST LEONARD’S Hospice is a charity which provides free specialist palliative care and support for local people with life threatening illnesses. It runs an in-patient unit, day care centre and Hospice@Home service.

Last year, the hospice provided care for about 850 patients – 350 at the hospice itself, and about 500 in their own homes through Hospice@Home.

Care is provided free of charge. Each year the hospice needs about £4 million to keep going. About a quarter comes from public funding sources, such as the NHS. The majority, however, comes from donations, legacies and fundraising.

Chief executive Martyn Callaghan says something like one in three York people will have contact with the hospice at some point – either through the hospice caring for them, or for a friend or loved one.

The response to the Hospice 2000 Appeal – launched by St Leonard’s and The Press in 1998 to raise £2 million for an extension and refurbishment to mark the millennium – demonstrated just how strongly people feel about the hospice. The target was reached in less than three years.

In addition to a team of experienced doctors and nurses, the hospice has specialists in complementary therapy, lymphoedema care, physiotherapy, social work, bereavement, occupational therapy and spiritual care.

It also has an army of about 500 dedicated volunteers, half of whom work in the shops, the other half at the hospice itself. Some have been at the hospice throughout its 30-year history – and even longer. Michael Bailey attended the first-ever meeting to discuss the idea of a hospice, way back in 1978.

Over the years, he has helped fit out the hospice’s various charity shops, and for a long time he edited the hospice newsletter.

“I edited 43 editions!” the 88-year-old retired chemical engineer says.

For years, he drove patients to the hospice.

“A few years ago, when I got to 80, I decided it would be better if I didn’t drive patients, in case I got involved in an accident,” he says. But he continued using his car to run errands for the hospice, and his wife, Beryl, is also a volunteer.