Thames Hospicecare - Sue Duncan - Nursing Director at Thames Hospicecare

Sue Duncan
Thames Hospicecare Nursing Director

adapted from an article by Poppy Bradbury from CT Windsor
Photo reproduced by the kind permission of Mark Lewis

My role here at the hospice is what was known as Matron, the senior nursing role.
We were Thames Valley Hospice for many years, but three years ago we merged with Paul Bevan House in Ascot, to form Thames Hospicecare.

We are an independent voluntary organisation, which is a charity. We get some funding from the Primary Care Trust and the NHS, but we fundraise for most of our money.

We encourage as much as possible for patient to learn to manage their symptoms, so they can go back out and enjoy their life. It’s about life and living, with goals to achieve each day.

We want to see what things in their life they’ve enjoyed , and see if we can rekindle and old interests like painting or storytelling, or something.. Actually there’s a lot of laughter here, there’s a lot of fun. People do like to enjoy a joke and be part of what’s going on, and not isolated with another reminder that they’re ill.

They may wish to do something quite simple, like go home and look at the garden one more time or see their dog. Nothing earth shattering but something really important for them as means of closure. We’ve even had weddings here.

What I expect to see is somebody being cared for how you’d expect one of your own family members to be cared for. If you care for somebody in that way , then you can’t go wrong really.

Our other philosophy is, it’s homely but with a professional input. We like to offer a home-from-home care, with all home furnishings and the flowers. Everything always looks fresh and clean and lovely.

But all that costs money, and we can’t assume, and we don’t want the public to assume that we’re ok. We need constant funding to maintain the services that we have already. People may see us, and thing we’re doing fine because we are fundraising a lot, but it’s a never ending need.

We held our Summer Fayre at Windsor Racecourse, which is a very well established, annual fundraiser. The theme for this year was ‘Grease is the Word!’ more dressing up and it’s a fantastic way of getting people’s attention.
Bigger events include the London to Paris Bike Ride and our new Sunrise Walk. One of our nurses has organised a sponsored parachute jump. Locally, we do the fun runs and other local fairs. Recently we had our Open Garden season with lots of local families opening up their lovely gardens for THc.

Incredibly, we have over 300 volunteers working with us, at the centres, in our retail units and in fundraising. Some work in the day support units, doing divertional activities like painting, drawing and pottery. Some work in the kitchen or at reception, some do the flowers, others are drivers. So we have lots of people working in the background to make everything run like clockwork.

We have great local support from a wide variety of people from the community. Andrew Peach, from Radio Berkshire and Kenneth Brannagh are amongst our patrons, and we are lucky to be supported by a number of other well known names at some of our events. John Virgo was a recent visitor to the Hospice.

Support also comes from the highest quarters: we have flowers given to us from the Castle after functions. On the documentary ‘The Queen’s Castle,’ the Queen was asked what about the flowers and she replied, ‘Don’t forget, it’s the Thames Valley Hospice.’ we were so pleased.

We get letters of thanks, and its great seeing the staff enjoying what they’re doing, and getting satisfaction from that, and how enthusiastic they are in bringing good patient care. The role I play still makes a difference to patients, although it’s behind the scenes, everything I do filters back down to the patient directly, I’m constantly looking for improvements.