Thames Valley Hospice Update

[Cookham v Coronavirus]

Covid 19 Planning
At a national level, hospices have been asked to try and create space for more patients.  We have been asked to prepare to take patients from hospitals that would not normally come to the hospice and to increase our capacity to keep as many of our patients as possible that are living with a life limiting illness at home so that are our inpatient beds are freed up.

Thames Hospice is now planning for how we can best support our current patients and their families as well as new patients in the coming weeks and months.   We are currently hiring additional Rapid Response nurses to visit people at home to help them stay well, and to take the pressure off ambulance and hospital Services. We will be purchasing our own protective suits and other vital supplies, as we can’t source through the NHS as we would usually.

Our doctors, nurses and counsellors are continuing with their daily work while making preparations to scale up to a level that we, as a hospice, have experienced before.  With our hospice almost complete, this has come at a really difficult time for us, but we will make sure that every patient gets the best care we can offer and then move onto finishing our new hospice.

Work on the New Hospice
My colleague, Jane, made this brief video at the site with Debbie, last week.  As you will see, the building is coming along in leaps and bounds.  We still very much hope that we will be ready for opening in July and our contractors are working hard to keep work on schedule.

Our new hospice will be a facility that I hope the whole community can be proud of!  Thank you for all your support.  We will need our friends and supporters in the coming months, so that we can keep caring for the most vulnerable in our community.  We really appreciate your commitment to our local community.   

As always we in the Cookhams Fundraising Group appreciate your support and should you wish to make any financial gift to the Hospice at this difficult time we would of course make sure it reaches them quickly.