Cambridge's Arthur Rank Hospice launches 'Help Us Be There'

The charity hopes to be able to provide more end-of-life care.

One in three hospice patients who wish to die at home is missing out on their wish as there is simply not enough money to go round.

It’s a regrettable situation and is one that Arthur Rank Hospice is keen to remedy, but the charity needs your help.

Together with the Cambridge Independent, the hospice launched a £100,000 appeal on Wednesday (May 22) urging the community to ‘help us be there’.

Extra funding would allow the Hospice at Home team to extend its overnight end-of-life care to many more patients whose choice it is to die at home.

It would allow the service’s healthcare assistants – specialists trained in palliative care – to help manage a person’s symptoms and offer emotional, psychological and bereavement support to both patients and their families.

Hospice at Home is offered free to patients, but for each night of care, the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity must find £472 to cover the cost.

Sadly, difficult decisions need to be made every day by the team, as to which patients and families need their care most each night.

Sarah Chipchase, one of the service’s clinical nurse specialists, explained: “Every day we’re having to turn away about one-third of our patients.

"As a team we just don’t have enough people. It’s heartbreaking”.

As part of the campaign, the charity has shared a film, produced with South Cambridgeshire-based production company Mill River TV.

The film introduces the Help Us Be There campaign and features two personal stories: one from Xanthe Barker, whose husband Sam was cared for by the Hospice at Home team in July 2018, and another from Michael Barnes whose wife Svitlana was cared for by them in February.

Michael met Svitlana in Ukraine in 1997, when he worked for the British government and she was a interpreter.

Michael said: “She was incredible really because it was always so understated, she was so modest.

“She never blew her own trumpet. She just got on and did things and she was never in your face. I think that was one of the reasons she had so many friends – why so many people loved her – and I loved her.”

Svitlana developed metastatic breast cancer, which became very aggressive towards the end of her life. She was 44 when she died.

“One of the things that has been really hard about Svitlana’s illness and her passing is the fact that she was only 44 years old,” said Michael.

“If it’s possible, I think it has made her passing even sadder and more difficult to comprehend than it already is.”

The Hospice at Home team supported the couple during the last two nights of Svitlana’s life.

Michael said the support was critical: “If we hadn’t had the support that we did have from the Hospice at Home team for those last couple of nights, I think I would have found it extremely difficult.

“Obviously, it was still the most stressful thing that I have ever had to go through. But, as it transpired, I wasn’t alone all the time. I was able to draw on support whenever I needed it.

"They basically just looked after her minute by minute for those final two nights. It was incredible.”

Michael said he chose to tell his story as part of the Help Us Be There campaign, in the hope that more nights of Hospice at Home care can be funded for those that need it such a crucial time.

“It is really hard to lose somebody who is so close to you,” he said. “Just knowing that they were cared for as well as they could be, and more, gives me a little bit of peace and I am grateful for that.”

The hospice is aiming to raise £100,000, which will fund an additional 200 nights of care.

To find out more, visit arhc.org.uk/helpusbethereby.asp.

To see the video, read Michael’s full story or discover more about the team behind the Hospice at Home service, visit arhc.org.uk/helpusbethere.asp.