Throughout the pandemic St Barnabas staff have been remarkably resilient and adaptive, and have been able to keep our excellent care and support operational and available.
The clinical teams have continued to work on the front line delivering round-the-clock, specialist care to people who are terminally ill. They have embraced the layers of PPE, supported each other with last minute shift changes and still delivered the same outstanding care in the most difficult of circumstances.
The pandemic had a huge impact on the Wellbeing department as all the usual face-to-face contact had to stop abruptly. Our Welfare, Counselling and Spiritual services were all able to carry on to some extent virtually thanks to the speedy work of our IT team getting people set up with phones and laptops. We launched Lincolnshire’s first Bereavement Helpline to support those who were struggling with their grief in isolation. This project was turned around within three weeks and has provided 1,377 hours of support to Lincolnshire residents.
Our PCCC team was chosen to develop a special tracker which helped identify patients in need and improve their care. Along with the tracker, the team also developed a multi-agency referral form that meant clinicians only needed to fill this in, instead of the four forms they used previously.
To date, the tracker now holds the details of over 1,600 patients and the form has dramatically reduced the time clinicians spend on referrals. This in turn has meant that clinicians have been able to reallocate more time to patient-centred care instead of administrative tasks.
In November 2019, we were delighted to achieve an ‘Outstanding’ Care Quality Commission rating for exceptional commitment to care. Two of our staff also attended the prestigious Hospice UK conference after being invited to speak about our work with the homeless community and in using digital technology.
Lincolnshire’s first Admiral Nursing service was launched last summer in partnership with Dementia UK and Lincolnshire County Council. The team have received over 600 referrals, meaning they have been able to support around 1,200 people in the space of a year.
2019/20 was a great year for the Fundraising team at St Barnabas, as we saw our first spring appeal in years bring in more than £100,000 for the Hospice and win national and local awards in the process.
Our Retail team was very busy during 2019/20, opening their first ever pop-up shop at the Waterside Shopping Centre in Lincoln which turned over £34,000.
The Lottery department launched a Brighter Tomorrow Raffle to help recoup some of the funds lost through cancelled fundraising events and closed charity shops. The raffle beat all expectations and raised an incredible £46,000 – more than double what a normal raffle would raise.
In 2019/20, the Hospice placed 53rd in the Sunday Times 100 Best Not for Profit Organisations, rising from 89th the previous year.