"Everything centres around the patients and their visitors"

My experience of the hospice has been absolutely amazing – everyone I’ve come across so far – there’s nothing they haven’t thought of.  The nurse comes out to see my husband at home, but I have experience of being in the hospice as well from when my Dad was ill.  Everyone I’ve dealt with phones me in a short space of time, and when we’ve had equipment delivered it has arrived - sometimes before it was even due!  We had grab rails put into our bathroom and they were put up within 7 minutes without a crumb of dust being left. 

We’ve had two nurses come out from the hospice.  Everyone is so nice and helpful, they make you feel at ease across the board.  When it comes to medication the nurses have tried different options, and my husband is not in any pain just now.  He’s not being sick, and is able to move around the house, and can get to the bathroom with an aid that the nurse brought him.  We have been very lucky with the care that he is receiving and I feel that it’s given him extra time.  Even his GP is amazed with how he’s doing.  The availability of different services is phenomenal, we’ve had massages and reflexology and have found it very beneficial.  Knowing these services are there makes a difference. 

It’s night and day when the hospice is compared to the hospital, I know they are two separate things but in the hospice everything centres around the patient and their visitors.  When my Dad was in the hospice and was having a meal we were offered something too.  The staff speak to you clearly and don’t hide anything, at the hospital I would become distressed because I felt they weren’t being honest with me, whereas at the hospice they tell you clearly what they know.  The hospice changed my Dad’s medication and I think gave him a bit longer, and made life easier at the latter end.  I would say that you don’t go into the hospice to die, you go in to live.