ST Luke’s Hospice Crisis Team celebrated its first anniversary this week, providing care for people when it’s needed most.

When Sarah Denne of Tavistock first heard that the St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth Crisis Team was coming to visit her home, she was unsure as to who was going to arrive.

During the team’s first year it has supported many families at home during a time of crisis. In the case of Sarah and her family, there was a need for immediate care for her husband Christopher, as he moved into the last weeks of his life with a diagnosis of prostate cancer.

‘I was dubious about the use of the word crisis,’ Sarah said, ‘but from the very first second they put us at ease. After the first visit my husband was in tears because he felt so much better. They were so gentle and lovely.’

The innovative initiative from the local hospice charity provides terminally ill patients with a 72 hour window of specialist care at home to stabilise symptoms, avoid any unnecessary admission to hospital or facilitate rapid discharge from hospital or hospice back home.

The service is also there to assist and support families and carers who at times can be under immense pressure, supporting them to respond to a rapidly changing situation and enabling them to continue providing care.

Sarah continued: ‘I cannot exaggerate how much difference it made to the last few hours of his life. He was getting incredibly hard to look after. Christopher wanted to die at home, but I was beginning to wonder how this would be possible. Once the St Luke’s team came it was absolutely wonderful. We really got to know them — there was never any question of feeling an invasion in our home.

‘The best thing about Christopher being cared for at home was friends and family could come and visit whenever they wanted, which he absolutely loved, especially our two-year-old grandson who was staying with us in the last days.’

Christopher sadly died in the early hours of October 21, in his family home in Tavistock.

‘There is no doubt, the Crisis Team made it possible for us all to be together at home, not in a hospital bed or hospice, but in our home surrounded by family. These were the wishes of Christopher and St Luke’s made it possible for him to have a dignified death.’

Sarah’s story is just one of many where the care this specialist team provides, extends far beyond the patient and reaches out to the family and carers.

Sharon Smerdon, Crisis Team lead, told the Times: ‘We often hear stories of how our intervention gives that extra support to loved ones, allowing them to concentrate on being a husband, wife or partner, rather dealing with the pressures of being the carer all alone at a time of crisis.’

In its first 12 months of operation the team has cared for 280 patients at home, including those in residential homes. Typically these interventions are for a 72 hour period, seven days a week, for families living anywhere from Plymouth to Dartmoor and Tavistock and across to the South Hams and Kingsbridge.

Sharon added: ‘The Crisis Team only exists with the generous support and donations from the local community. It costs on average £2,000 per patient to run the service, but stories like we have just heard prove just how much of a difference we are making. We can only do it with your support.

‘Our aim is simple. To be there at a time of crisis and where it is medically possible, avoid unnecessary admission to hospital or hospice, honouring the patient’s last wish to die at home.’

The Crisis Team, which currently receives no NHS funding, is another major milestone in the aim of St Luke’s to reach out and care for even more local people as part of its vision to achieve a community where no-one has to die alone, in pain or distress. To manage this, the team of multidisciplinary experts are available wherever people wish to be cared for — at home, in Derriford Hospital or at the hospice unit in Turnchapel.

l For more information visit www.stlukes-hospice.org.uk/crisis