STAFF at Abbotsfield Hall Nursing Home in Tavistock have been working hard to make sure their end-of-life care is of the highest standard, with two members of the staff becoming end-of-life ambassadors with St Luke’s Hospice in Plymouth.

Julie Marks and Tina Hodge of the Abbotsfield team have undertaken a nine-month end-of-live course at St Luke’s and have become the first ambassadors for end of life care in Tavistock.

They were presented with a certificate from the hospice at a training afternoon for Abbotsfield staff last Wednesday (March 16).

Julie Marks said: ‘The course was about providing a holistic approach to end of life care, about recognising all of a patient’s needs, including things on the legal side, advance directives and other things to consider, sometimes over a year before a person is likely to die.

‘There is a lot more to palliative care than many people might realise at first.

‘Providing good end-of-life care is a wonderful thing you can do for someone. I have always been interested in end-of-life care and I jumped at the chance to to do the course. It was nine months, with a four hour session once a month. Those were very heavy, very intense sessions.

‘Over time we’ve built up an organisational file and a resource file which our staff at Abbotsfield can now refer to to help with our overall approach to end-of-life care.’