Double award win for St Barnabas Hospice nurses in Lincolnshire

On the back of winning the Michael Howard Award from Hospice UK, the community care nurse specialists at St Barnabas Hospice have now picked up the Innovation in Healthcare and Wellbeing award at the Lincolnshire Technology and Innovation Awards hosted by CityX.

Coupled with the double award win, the hospice also announced that this service, which was originally given funding from Lincolnshire County Council for two years, has now been awarded permanent support and funding going forwards.

Tracey Perrett, head of service, hospitals and special projects at Lincolnshire County Council, said: “This is a great example of the impact of collaboration and innovative working – delivered with a shared vision and making a difference to people and their families at the end of life.

"Lincolnshire is the only place that has this service, with the county council grant funding. And the great news going forward is that it’s been agreed to support this service on a permanent basis.”

The service came about when Kerry Bareham, nurse consultant at St Barnabas Hospice, penned a dissertation for her MSc which highlighted the need for more support in hospitals in identifying palliative care needs. This research informed a business case for the role of community care nurse specialists.

And the two nurses, Ashleigh Robinson and Holly Musgrave, began their roles as community care nurse specialists in 2019.

Kerry Bareham said: “I am so proud of Holly and Ashleigh for the work they have done over the past two years, especially as I have had so much involvement in the project from the offset.

“My research identified that most people have at least three unplanned hospital admissions in their last year of life. If just one unplanned hospital admission was avoided for each of the 552 patients supported by Ashleigh and Holly, this could have equated to £460,000 in savings for the NHS. This is based on an average admission cost of £2,500 and factoring in that community care costs two thirds of secondary hospital care.”