Pilot service takes expert hospice care across the River Tamar

ST Luke’s Hospice Plymouth’s end of life Urgent Care Team ventured across the Tamar to visit their first patient at home in East Cornwall, as part of a pilot service running until the end of March 2024.

- JACKIE BUTLER

Senior health care assistant Bee Daniels and nurse Jo Davis went to meet a very grateful Paul Treeby and his daughter, Jude Kitt.

It’s less than half a kilometre from one side to the other but crossing the Tamar Bridge represented a significant milestone for St Luke’s pilot East Cornwall Urgent Care Service.

Until now, it has been a bridge too far for the hospice’s “at home” teams, who already clock up more than 80,000 miles a year taking their specialist care to the doorsteps of patients in Plymouth and surrounding areas of West and South Devon.

In a ground-breaking move, a four-month trial service has been launched to visit end-of-life patients and their families at home in a largely rural stretch from Saltash to Torpoint and the Rame Peninsula, up the Tamar Valley towards Callington and Launceston and across to Liskeard.

Patients in this area have benefited from St Luke’s care at Derriford Hospital and in the charity’s specialist unit at Turnchapel, but there has previously been no St Luke’s service available to support them either to remain at home or to care for them on discharge from hospital.

Senior healthcare assistant Bee and nurse Jo were thrilled and proud to be pioneers on a mission to make a positive difference to people’s lives, working closely with NHS healthcare colleagues across the water.

“The whole team are really excited to be in East Cornwall,” said Bee, in the driving seat as they passed the ‘Welcome to Cornwall’ sign in the centre of the bridge. “It’s another big area for us to cover and it’s going to be a lot more rural nursing, but we’re all up for the challenge.”