In response to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, East Cheshire Hospice is continuously working to implement various changes and plans in order to protect the safety and well-being of its patients, staff, volunteers and community. The Hospice is adapting each day to follow Government and NHS guidelines. This may change on a daily or even hourly basis, so if you are involved with, or planning to come to the Hospice for any reason, please check back regularly for the latest information and advice here.
For more information specifically about visiting the Hospice & PPE click here.
Updated April 2021
Sunflower Centre and Outpatients
As of the week commencing 29.3.2021 all face to face outpatient appointments have resumed but at a reduced service remaining in line with the National Guidance review. Sunflower Centre is now increasing the availability of spaces for day patients as of the 12th April 2021. Support can still be accessed via Telehealth Communications.
Our Adult and Child family support services are still open, again supported by telehealth or video consultations.
Inpatient Unit
The IPU is operating as close to normal as possible with adaptations to the admission process which includes a COVID screening process to ensure patient and staff safety is maintained.
We continue to provide our staff with high standard personal protection equipment to ensure all our staff, patients and visitors are kept safe, and should we need to barrier nurse patients we have adapted our bed allocation for suspected/confirmed cases of Covid-19.
Families of current patients are being asked to help us reduce the risk of infection by wearing the provided PPE, following our new guidance for visiting and to maintain good hand hygiene procedures. We also ask anyone who is unwell or may have symptoms of COVID to not visit the Hospice until they are better.
We are supporting our hard-pressed colleagues in the NHS as best we can.
Hospice @Home
As with IPU admissions, we are asking extra screening questions prior to taking the patient onto our case load. We realise these patients are the most isolated and vulnerable in our community and will do our best to help in any way they need us.
Workforce including volunteering
All non-clinical staff who can work from home are doing so, however some are returning to the Hospice site to carry out their duties.
Volunteers are slowly returning to certain areas of the hospice, following the new COVID safe policy, and we are ensuring all risk is mitigated and our volunteers are kept safe following Government guidance.
The advice remains the same and that is that you need to self-isolate for two weeks if you or someone in your household develops a high temperature or new persistent cough.
Other Information
All Hospice and community fundraising events and gatherings have been cancelled or postponed over the past 12 months with income lost or vastly reduced as a result. We hope to see more fundraising events able to take place over the coming months.
The Hospice Lottery will run as normal for the foreseeable future
Hospice shops
The Hospice’s shops are now open with social distancing measure in place. For more information on our shops including donations, please click here.
