Leaky roofs, dodgy boilers, rooms to small for effective use, there are many things wrong with there old Ward at Shrewsbury's Severn Hospice but there about to put them right, and they ask the community for there help.
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00:00We're here at Severn Hospice in Shrewsbury talking to their CEO about an
00:05important project that's coming up hopefully this year and some fundraising
00:08they're doing for it. Ever thanks for joining us today tell us all about the
00:13Perry project and what is happening with it. Okay so the Perry project is Perry
00:18ward and it's our oldest ward so it's been in existence for 35 years just over.
00:25It's no longer fit for purpose so this essential project isn't a nice to do
00:31it's it's essential. The roof needs to be replaced, the boiler system needs to be
00:36replaced, the rooms are no longer big enough for them to be fit for purpose so
00:43patients that we used to have referred very different from the patients we have
00:47referred now and they need lots of equipment families need to stay so it's
00:52not fit for purpose it doesn't meet all regulatory requirements and so
00:58that's where the idea of the project was born. We also want to set a different
01:02standard. We want to set a standard that makes people feel as they come into the
01:08hospice a certain way you know comfortable, relaxed, supported, cared for. We've set a
01:15set standard at Telford that that is just that and we want the same for our
01:20patients in Shrewsbury at Bicton. It's a capital project it's a lot of money and I
01:26know it's an odd time to be talking about such an investment and if it
01:30wasn't essential we wouldn't be but it is essential. It doesn't mean to say that
01:36we're still being not still being very very careful with our money and how we
01:41raise money and how we spend our money so alongside this you know very tight
01:46budgeting process cost improvement plans all of those things this is separate
01:51it's a capital project with part funding it from our reserves but we would like
01:56the help of our supporters to make up the difference between what we've saved what
02:00trusts have given us and what we need. Yeah tell everyone who's wanting to get
02:05involved what they can do to help how far it will go and how much you're hoping to
02:09raise. Okay we're hoping to raise a million that sounds ambitious but that is the
02:14current gap so we're hoping to save save that but every pound matters and I want
02:21anybody who can give a pound or however much to know that that's valued and to
02:27know that that makes a difference you know we've called it pounds for Perry and I
02:33literally mean that I literally mean that whatever whatever our supporters can do
02:38and I don't want them to forget that we are very grateful for what they do
02:42already you know the supporters of Seven Hospice within Shropshire are just
02:48amazing they're working all the time to support us and help us and we wouldn't
02:53be here today I see Seven Hospice as their hospice it belongs to the public
02:58because at the end of the day they fund two-thirds of what we do and you know a
03:03commitment to a project like this even if it's only a pound is absolutely fine and
03:08very much appreciated. Yeah I mean my final question is how excited are you for the
03:13project and getting it done and then obviously having these wonderful state
03:17of the art facilities again here? I'm really excited we're all really excited
03:21because what motivates us is doing the best we can for our patients and families
03:26and if we think that our environments aren't quite up to scratch and these are
03:31quite far off then that's not good enough for us so yes we are excited so welcome to
03:37Perry Ward and this is our ward in Shrewsbury and we are egg beds and we look
03:44after palliative care patients who are unable to be looked after into the community
03:48and they come to us with complex needs and also come for end-of-life care when it
03:53can't be delivered in their homes or elsewhere. So we will start down here.
04:04So this is our communal area and as you know Seven Hospice at Shrewsbury was the
04:10first hospice to be built as part of our organisation so it's been here over 35
04:15years now and the outer burden has remained the same but however the care needs for
04:20patients have changed. Originally when the hospice opened it was about providing
04:26end-of-life care for patients so patients would come in and basically go into beds
04:31and be cared for in their beds however the philosophy of hospice care has changed
04:36and it's about looking after people for as long as possible and keeping them well
04:39enough and as independent as they can. So we have a lot of patients now that will
04:44come in and be cared for and they'll be independent in their own care needs so
04:50they're up and about however the room space has not adapted with the care needs
04:55of our ward so we're now planning a project for the refurb so that we can
05:00match the care of our patients.
05:03This is a space for the residents enjoy our art now?
05:06So yeah so this is our communal lounge and we always have a jigsaw out for relatives to use
05:12some patients to set up so they quite enjoy that. We always have a jigsaw on.
05:17What's the plan for the changes to community lounge? Is it going to be a big
05:23upgrades to this as well? Yeah so it's going to be made lighter we're extending the
05:27kitchen because our relatives are open to use the kitchen we want them to feel like
05:31they're at home when they're here with their relatives so relatives use the
05:36kitchen and help themselves but the kitchen space as you will see it's very tiny so the plan is to extend it.
05:40We're also going to be redoing the conservatory which at the moment has a leak as many of our areas
05:49in our ward leak at the moment and with the rain that can be quite frequently and impacts our beds a lot
05:55because we end up having to close beds.
05:58We've had to repaint the area I think we've done it three times now but you can see it still leaks and we leak down the windows so it's not really an ideal area when you've got relatives wanting to be here and have some time on their own and you've got buckets or anything out on the catch trips.
06:23Is it frustrating? Very frustrating. I think it's frustrating when we had to close beds and you go to bed meeting in the morning and you find out that you've got people at home that need to come in for our care and we haven't got a bed for them to come in
06:37because we've had to close due to maintenance and that is really frustrating because staff don't want to hear that somebody's at home struggling when they could be here having our care so it has been really frustrating.
06:49It's been frustrating with room size for patients because, and I'll take you up and show you one of the rooms in a minute, as we've got patients that are now more independent or are up and about using wheelchairs, some of our bedrooms you can't even get the wheelchair around the bottom of the bed.
07:06So it takes away that independence or relatives being able to take their loved one out in the chair themselves because they have to call staff to come and move the bed for them to get out from around the bottom.
07:19And that's just on the back of the fact that hospice care has changed so much from people coming in to die to the fact that they come in now for symptom control and then will go home again.
07:31And so it just shows how palliative care has changed over the years and how hospice has changed with that.
07:36Okay so Luke this is one of our smaller rooms and the plan for during our refurb is to enlarge the room so as I was saying how palliative care has changed over the years and people are now more independent.
07:49As you can see trying to get a wheelchair around the bottom here can be quite challenging for patients to do themselves and even for relatives and staff.
07:57So the plan is to extend the rooms, we're going to make them bigger, make them less clinical because we want them to have that home to home feeling that they're going in and out of hospital a lot during their illnesses so we don't want people to feel that they're in a clinical area.
08:11So it's just about putting some earth colours in and making it feel more warm and just making it feel general calm and warm for them.
08:21Yeah and you were talking about the bathrooms as well, what needs doing with regards to that?
08:26So at the moment none of our en-suites have showers so we have one shower for the whole ward and I will show you it's very narrow you can't turn a wheelchair around in it.
08:37And again that's on the process of obviously when we first opened the shower was really for relatives because the patients were coming for end of life care.
08:45Whereas now patients are independent so they want to shower but you can't turn the wheelchair around and shower because it's very narrow.
08:52So we're also going to have en-suites with their own showers so patients will be able to maintain that independence if they want to.
08:58And also have that accommodation for relatives if they need to use it rather than trying to share one shower between relatives.
09:06And again we're also looking to replace the water boiler because we do have trouble with water pressure.
09:12Okay.
09:13So you can imagine that can be frustrating for relatives, staff and that when you're trying to do your day-to-day care of patients and the water pressure is really often actually just due to the age of the boiler and in fact it just all needs updating and replacing.
09:27So here's our second bathroom and again this had the benefit of having a bath that didn't feel so big to patients who wanted not to be in such a large bath experience.
09:40However unfortunately as you can see we've had quite a lot of leakage from drainage underneath so we've had to close this bathroom as it doesn't reach, won't pass infection control standards.
09:53So we've had to close it, we did look at seeing how if we could repair it however the cost alone just to fix the flooring was going to be £4,000.
10:02However that doesn't fix the reason why we were having to replace it so this will now be done part of the refurb.
10:10Okay so this is our main bathroom and we do have this bathroom, it does jacuzzi bubbles which patients absolutely love.
10:18And we have a lot of last requests so I'd love to have a bath and we know that it is going to potentially be their last bath and we want to give that spa jacuzzi type feeling and people have even chosen or can have a gin and tonic which we will certainly get if that's what they want.
10:33However as you can see it's a very sterile, very dull, plain environment.
10:39It's not the most relaxing environment to come and have a bubble bath.
10:42So the plan is to obviously update it and make it feel more warm, more cosy for people to be able to have that last comfortable experience.
10:52So this is our shower room. The issue we have here is obviously a lot of our patients we will bring down in wheelchairs that want to use it.
11:01And as you can see if you've got a patient in here, the sink there, there is not much space.
11:06Also the shower room itself can be very claustrophobic for patients that have breathing difficulties when you've got no window you can open.
11:15They can feel really claustrophobic and it can make their symptoms actually worse.
11:19It can escalate their symptoms to feel more short of breath just because the room gets so hot then with the water and there's no ventilation and no light coming in.
11:30So again as I was saying this just shows how palliative care has changed over the years.
11:36When the building was originally made this showering would have been for relatives only and our patients would have been well enough to use them.
11:43But now they are so we need to move with the change of our patients and make an area that the patients can use as well as our relatives.
11:50So we have also in the past had issues where we had bedrooms that don't have en-suites.
11:56But moving forward with the refurb all our rooms will have en-suites and half of them will have their own shower as well.
12:03So this is one of the rooms that we have to regularly close when we have the heavy rain.
12:07So there's two rooms that we regularly close due to a bin and as you can see it leaks quite a lot.
12:13And this is a patient room so there's no way we can put patients in here.
12:16So we end up closing the rooms which then you know affects our capacity to get patients in when they need our care.
12:22so we do need our care?
12:30like you