SUMMER 2003

HOSPICE HEADLINES

Tring Millennium Woodland Second Planting

We are thrilled to announce that the Tring Millennium Woodland is to be extended and a further 1000 trees will be planted on the site at Duckmore Lane, Tring early in 2004. The IRHH worked with Tring Town Council on the establishment of the woodland in the Millennium year and hundreds of people sponsored trees or came along to help with the planting. Many also came along to a special Dedication Ceremony later in the year when the trees were in leaf.

You can sponsor trees in the new woodland in return for a donation. Click here for more.

Tring Town Council voted to extend the woodland and will fund and manage the project with support from Dacorum Borough Council and Countryside Management Services. The Mayor of Tring, Helen Armstrong, who has been supporting the IRHH over the last year, announced the second planting which will raise substantial funds for the IRHH.

Record-Breakers It wasn't only Paula Radcliffe who smashed a record in the 2003 Flora London Marathon on Sunday 13th April. Iain Rennie's biggest ever team of 19 runners are on target to raise over £30,000! They all completed the race safely and with very respectable times. Click here for more pictures, times and further details If you didn't get a place in the London Marathon, but still want to run for Iain Rennie, click here.

IRHH runner, Steve Hudson, catches his breath at the 17 mile mark

Cycle Australia: Mike Hill Completes His Trip Round Oz

Mike Hill, the man who decided to cycle round the coast of Australia to raise funds for the Iain Rennie Hospice At Home, has successfully completed his amazing journey. Mike, aged 28, left Bovingdon Green, Hemel Hempstead on 9th April 2002 and completed his 10,000 mile solo cycle ride two months early. Mike also found the extra time and energy to cycle round Tasmania. He hopes that his efforts will have raised over £14,000. Click here for more.

Knockout!

The Graffiti Girls knocked 2002 winners, the Tylers Green Terrors, into fourth place at our Knockout Challenge Kids' Competition in High Wycombe. The sunny bank holiday weather suited the "vacation" theme, and our best-ever mix of foam, fun and inflatables was enjoyed by participants and spectators alike. The Adults competition was won by the "Green Goons". More...

Beaujolais Champagne Challenge Boosts Wycombe Mayor's Appeal

The Mayor of High Wycombe, Ian McEnnis, is set to end his year as Mayor on a high following a series of substantial donations. The biggest boost to his appeal has come following his participation in the BP Beaujolais Champagne Challenge which raised an amazing £28,000. Donations of £8,900 from the Wycombe Court Help Desk and £1,500 from the Rhyme & Reason group, which produces an annual poetry anthology, put the appeal on target to raise well over £50,000 for us.

HOSPICE AT HOME NEWS

IRHH Chief Executive, Rowena Dean, writes: Each time I sit down to write this piece for Doorstep I find that my first thoughts are around financial issues. So much of my time over the last twelve months has been occupied with funding from government and the PCTs with regard to the additional money for palliative care. Now we are in a new financial year with a higher budget and the funding discussions are still underway and unresolved.

Rowena makes a point at Charter Park

Our projected budget for 2003/04 is approaching the £2m mark for the first time - national nursing salary uplifts combined with the additional 1% increase in National Insurance has made the largest impact on the budget. To raise this level of income, IRHH Trustees have agreed to strengthen the fundraising department by recruiting an additional member of staff. Our fundraising staff are very successful in their endeavours and have an exceptional commitment to the task facing them but they cannot be expected to continue under the same pressure for another year and I am pleased that they will be better resourced in the coming years.

The Iain Rennie Hospice at Home will be caring for well over 750 patients and their families and carers in the coming year. We are currently caring for 17% more people than at the same stage last year. Yet our costs per patient are not increasing by the same percentage which is a good indication that we are managing to control our expenditure and maintain basic efficiencies. IRHH manages the non-core business of its operation very effectively through a combination of basic essential posts combined with a significant volunteer input. We can certainly justify the expenditure we allocate to a relatively small support staff base

Statutory funding - or rather the paucity of it - is still an issue for many hospices despite the Government making an additional £50m available for specialist palliative care. Click here for more. My mild note of optimism in the last newsletter may not be completely unjustified, but what is still not clear is the amount of money that will be allocated to sustain existing hospice services. No hospice can take on service developments even if additional funds were provided for this purpose unless and until the current service provision is supported. Strong messages along these lines have been sent to the Department of Health and the Cancer Networks and as a result some reallocation of the funds has been discussed so that current service provision is addressed. In the meantime the general service agreements are being uplifted by around 3.5%, when the cost pressures on salaries alone are running at around 6.5% - 7% - you don't need to be a statistician to see that the gap is increasing markedly.

IRHH did benefit from the £10m allocation for 2002/03 and at the end of the financial year had received £30,000 from 3 PCTs. This was however non-recurrent funding and there is therefore no guarantee that it will be forthcoming in future years.

Following our successful Charter Mark application at the end of last year I was asked by the Cabinet Office to speak to prospective applicants during a series of events held around the country. I have now presented at two of these "Charter Park" events and so the fame of IRHH is spreading.

A few facts and figures about the financial year

Overall we have had a fortunate year and anticipate a surplus of some £200k when the accounts are finalised, which will give a welcome strength to our reserves. We have achieved our strategic aim of maintaining 6 months reserves through the year but need to continue to sustain this level despite the financial goal posts moving ever upwards.

Pledged giving = welcome recurrent income

Pledged giving currently funds two nursing salaries

Click here to make a donation

Comings & Goings

Welcome to: JAMES FISHER, Specialist Support Nurse with the Ridgeway team; SONYA O'LEARY, new Pepper Paediatric Team Leader; JILL AMSBURY, Specialist Support Nurse with the Dacorum team; SUSANNA NEWMAN, PA to Director of Nursing; JOHN CLARK, Volunteer Mobile Information Unit Co-ordinator; SHONA DRUMMOND, SUSAN SOLOMON, SUE LAMBERT, MAGGIE PARKINS, new volunteers with the Fundraising Department. CHRIS KENNEDY (Specialist Support Nurse with the Dacorum team) who has become a Bank Nurse.

Goodbye to: HEATHER PHILPOTTS, Pepper Paediatric team Leader; LIZ GRESHAM, Clinical Nurse Specialist, AUDREY HEDGECOCK, Specialist Support Nurse both with the South Bucks team; CHRIS GLENNON, Specialist Support Nurse with the Wycombe team.

Congratulations to: EMILY SMITH (née SHORTHOUSE), our Voluntary Services Manager, and JAMES who were married on 22nd March.

Thank You, Heather The Iain Rennie Hospice At Home celebrated the achievements of Heather Philpotts, the first Pepper Paediatric Nurse, who has left the IRHH as her family has moved from the area. A reception was attended by colleagues past and present, as well as trustees from the IRHH and The Pepper Foundation which has provided funding for the pioneering nursing service for children with life limiting illnesses since it started. More…

IRHH Past & Future - Celebrating 20 Years of Caring

In 2005 the IRHH will be celebrating its 20th anniversary. Even at this early stage, ideas and plans are emerging and we are keen to hear from anyone who would like to help in any way. We have a lot to celebrate and a challenging future ahead. Please contact Rowena Dean rdean@irhh.org on 01442 890222 if you would like to get involved.

Computer Systems

This year we need to make improvements to the IT function within IRHH. At the moment we rely very heavily on a somewhat creaking IT system, which depends on PCs working to full stretch and on the skills of staff who also have 'day jobs'. We have undertaken an IT review this year with the help of some very dedicated volunteers, and now have to face the challenge of replacing both hardware and systems with the inevitable cost implication. We are, however, looking to cover the costs through sponsorship and we are confident that we will be able to mitigate the budget effect in this way. If you know of any possible source of sponsorship, please email Robert Breakwell rbreakwell@irhh.org or call 01442 890222.

Audit Update

Sarah Wallington-Smith, IRHH Clinical Audit Facilitator, introduces a new, regular Doorstep feature which feeds back on our audit findings. Click here for more on Clinical Audit at IRHH.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN "AUDIT"? HOW DO YOU DO THAT? Audit is the way in which we measure the quality of the work we do. This involves measuring our performance against nationally, and locally agreed standards, together with asking the users of our service whether we are meeting their needs.

We do this in many ways. The following are examples of some of the work we have undertaken in the past six months, together with comments made by our "users", the main findings of the audits, and the actions we have pledged to undertake as a result.

Oh, no, not another survey….

We all know that sinking feeling when yet another questionnaire drops out of the envelope. Is it really worth filling them in? Does anyone read them? Or is it just another ticked box on someone's list of things to do?

Here at Iain Rennie we have to plead guilty to using surveys as a key means of monitoring and improving what we do, so our special thanks go to the 84 patients and carers who took the time to respond to our latest Patient and Family Experience Survey.

We use the survey to check that we are achieving our service standards and to invite users to tell us what is important to them.

You told us that the most important ways we help you are:

With all the staffing shortages and pressure on time that our NHS colleagues have to endure, it was reassuring to know that

But it is not all good news. There were some delays in acknowledging receipt and thanking those who most generously sent donations in with their completed survey forms. We have identified where those delays have occurred, and will administer the survey from just one of our offices in future to speed up the process.

The comment "I never knew that such a service existed" has led us to update the IRHH information packs which we give to our District Nursing colleagues, and to map the distribution of our IRHH information leaflets.

We also wish to thank the parents of the children our paediatric team is helping to care for who completed a family experience survey.

There were suggestions for:

We are pleased to announce the arrival of Lindsey Lillywhite our Play Therapist, and to report that plans are underway for a resource cupboard to be developed and funded by the Pepper Foundation.

It wasn't all surveys though! We undertook an audit of the compliments, comments, and complaints that we had received over a ten month period.

5 of the 7 administration complaints received concerned inaccuracies with the nursing database. We have identified where those problems occur, raised awareness of the problem with all IRHH staff, and are pleased to be able to report improvement already.

The main findings of an audit of the problems with messages at IRHH showed us:

We do appreciate your help with this work, and assure you that we do listen to your comments and act on them.

Future work in 2003 will include

Click here for further details about our audit work or contact Sarah Wallington-Smith, Clinical Audit Facilitator, sarahw-s@irhh.org or tel 01442 890444.