The generous donor has been a long-term supporter of the hospice which provides nursing care and emotional support for adults with life-limiting conditions such as cancer, motor neurone disease, and heart and respiratory conditions.
The laptops will prove invaluable to the team of forty Treetops Hospice Care nurses and healthcare assistants who provide vital end of life care to patients in their own homes, across South Derbyshire and South Nottinghamshire.
They can work much more efficiently
Hospice at Home Manager, Teresa Smith, explained the difference the laptops will make:
“By the nature of their role, our nurses do not work from an office. They live and work out in the community and are distance-managed.
“By providing the team with laptops – with appropriate security systems – they can work much more efficiently. They will have direct access to their patients’ details, they will be able to receive updates of a patient’s care needs before attending a shift, and can type up their handover notes directly onto the system.
“The laptops will also enable us to provide more support for the team. At present, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, we’re unable to host our normal team meetings and training sessions. With the laptops, we can start virtual sessions.”
The Treetops Hospice at Home Service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days per year – even while the Coronavirus pandemic is taking place. Nurses are available during the daytime and overnight, enabling family members and carers to take a break or get a good night’s sleep. Last year, Hospice at Home nurses provided over 28,000 hours of care across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.
Nobody can keep caring for 24 hours a day
Liz Docker, Treetops Hospice at Home nurse, explained how vital the service is right now:
“The patients we go out to support have got a life-limiting illness. They are reaching the end of their life and that would be happening anyway, whether there is COVID-19 or not.
“As a carer looking after somebody’s who’s very ill, it’s extremely difficult at home. It can be very stressful and really tiring, and nobody can keep caring for 24 hours a day. Nights can be especially difficult for carers.
“We arrive at the house and get to know the patient, get to know the family – and then the family can go and get a good night’s sleep and we do everything that’s needed during the night.”
This is not the time to stop giving the care that we give.
Liz explained how the Coronavirus pandemic is affecting the service:
“We’re used to going into these situations where people are very, very ill and where the family is very stressed, but we have got this extra risk going on at the moment.
“There is a level of anxiety amongst us because this is a situation that we’ve not had to deal with before but the hospice is doing everything they can to provide us with PPE.
“This is not the time to stop giving the care that we give. That’s just the kind of people we are – we’re going to keep going until it’s physically impossible to.”
Treetops is doing all it can to continue to support those in most need and the hospice is asking for donations to ensure they can continue to provide their services free of charge throughout the pandemic. Donations can be made online here.