Lament for St Peter's in Knowle? Andy Sheppard plays in call for hospice to stay open

This from the Save Our Hospice group I'm active in (15 Addison Road, Victoria Park, Bristol, BS3 4QH, saveourhospice@hotmail.co.uk):

Press release:

Andy Sheppard plays in call for hospice to stay open

Renowned jazz musician, Andy Sheppard, is supporting the campaigning group urging St Peter’s Hospice not to close their hospice in Knowle. He will accompany members of the local group, Save Our Hospice, when they present a petition to Keith Bonham, MBE, the Chair of the Trustees, at St Peter’s Hospice, Charlton Road, Brentry on Tuesday, 22nd September, at 5.30pm.

Together with many other well-known musicians, Andy Sheppard is very aware of the excellent care provided by the hospice in Knowle, because of his working association and friendship with Heloise Osborne, a long-time producer of jazz concerts, tours and festivals, who died there last November. Nod Knowles, Chief Executive of Bath’s International Music Festival and another close friend and colleague of Heloise Osborne’s said today: “The hospice meant so much to Heloise – it helped her with essential care and effective pain relief and provided friendship and shared understanding with other terminally ill patients in the day centre. Crucially, because it was in South Bristol, she and her loved ones were able to get there without too much difficulty.”

As St Peter’s Hospice have already decided to close the hospice in Knowle, Andy Sheppard will be playing a lament on his saxophone for all the people who may be denied specialist in-patient pain relief and hospice care as a result of this decision. Save Our Hospice invite you to photograph, film and listen to Andy’s playing.

Save Our Hospice has written to all the Trustees urging them to reconsider their decision, and the letter has been tabled for discussion at the Trusteees’ quarterly meeting next Tuesday.

Paula Davis, a member of Save Our Hospice, says: “£300,000 is what is required to repair the Knowle hospice and bring it up to standard. Once gone, it will cost many millions to launch a new hospice in South Bristol and it will probably never be replaced. This is a valuable resource and we really cannot afford to lose 10 hospice beds, especially when the Bristol PCT has set a target of reducing the number of people who die in hospital unnecessarily by 10% each year for the next three years. Where will these people go if they require specialist care? Come on St Peter’s Trustees and Chief Executive! Start an emergency fundraising appeal and we will all support you. It’s easier to keep the Knowle hospice than to start again.”

For further information please ring 07929 897149 or email saveourhospice@hotmail.co.uk to speak to:

Paula Davis
Or
Glenn Vowles
Or
Dr Chris Fox, a GP in south Bristol supporting the campaign

*Online version of our petition to be presented along with our paper version: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-our-hospice/

We need more hospice facilities not fewer!

Pat Simmons letter (‘Its not sentimental, but practical to keep hospice’, Open Lines, Friday August 28) was absolutely spot on – and was also very moving. Wanting to keep a fantastic facility like St Peter’s Hospice open in Knowle is indeed about practicalities not sentiment. As Pat points out the location of St Peter’s enabled easy and fast access for her (it has done for many over the years). We need more of such facilities not fewer. I’m afraid we cannot currently regard health provision in Britain as fully ‘cradle to grave’ - but this is what we need.

Like Pat I’m also very puzzled by the sudden-ness and speed of the decision. It was announced in the media and now we are, very sadly, already close to the point of complete closure. Little or no broad-based consultation was, as far as I am aware, sought or undertaken by those taking the decision at St Peter’s – yet they are funded by public donations and do receive large sums for some of their work from the NHS.

Despite a very well supported petition (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-our-hospice/ ) and public meeting on the matter there is no sign of them changing their minds or even delaying to re-examine their options and talk properly with the wider community and with elected representatives about funding, keeping the Knowle facility open or establishing an alternative locally.

It strange to me that no fundraising campaign was launched. I cannot understand how a building relatively recently refurbished - in the late 1990’s I think – now needs so much spent on it. Was the refurbishment badly done? Has planned maintenance not be properly carried out?

I very strongly support getting away from ever-larger, more centralised institutions. I thought St Peter’s supported this thinking. However, it does not look this way now and South Bristol, lacking in health facilities already, may lose a valuable asset. If it can be established and widely agreed that the Knowle site is too big an annual drain on resources why not invest the considerable income that would result from the sale of the site in a new local facility?

I worry that this may well be a case of ‘you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til its gone’.

Save St Peter's Hospice in Knowle: online version of petition

You can now sign the St Peter's Hospice petition online by clicking the link below:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-our-hospice/

St Peter's Hospice, Knowle: petition opposing closure

I'm helping the campaign to keep St Peter's Hospice in Knowle from closure. Having already written to St Peter's Director of Patient Care I will also be attending, and helping to publicise, the public meeting at Windmill Hill City Farm this Friday (see details in the post below this one or click on the image, left) and helping to collect signatures on a paper petition that reads as below (copies available from me, or by phoning the number below if you'd like to help - I'm hoping to have the petition available to sign electronically within a few days and will post details here):

We, the undersigned, believe that the decision to close the hospice in South Bristol with the loss of ten beds in September will result in many terminally ill people being denied a specialist in-patient pain relief service and being left to die on busy hospital wards. We cannot understand why there has been no emergency appeal to save this essential service.

We call upon St Peter’s Hospice, Bristol Primary Care Trust and United Bristol Hospital Trust to consult the people of South Bristol about these plans and to work together to ensure that a full hospice service remains available in South Bristol.

If you are signing this petition, please tick if you want to help with this campaign. Please return the completed form to: Save Our Hospice, 15 Addison Rd, Victoria Park, Bristol BS3 4QH. To contact us, phone 07929 897149 or email: saveourhospice@hotmail.co.uk

St Peter's Hospice: public meeting about the proposed closure in Knowle

The intention to close St Peter's Hospice in Knowle

Two excellent letters appeared in Friday's local paper, making a great case for keeping St Peter's Hospice as an extremely valuable local community service in St Agnes Avenue, Knowle. I fully support the case made by the day hospice volunteers and will be writing, as they suggest in their letters, to express my feelings and will copy in local councillors and MP. I've copied the first of the letters below:

We refer to your recent article regarding the future plans for St Peter's Hospice.
As volunteers at the Day Hospice, we were all amazed to receive individual letters advising of the intended closure of this valuable facility in September.

We were all dismayed at this announcement, withdrawing such a valuable service to the very community which has given its overwhelming support to the hospice over the past 30 years since its founding at the Knowle site.

The people of South Bristol have taken this charity to their hearts during that time. Many local individuals and businesses alike feel this to be their charity.

The withdrawal of this facility is considered by many to be just a first step towards the total withdrawal of the hospice in South Bristol.

We, the volunteers, see at first-hand the huge benefit which the day hospice has provided to the people who have needed it most. Many of these people find even the short journey to the hospice to be quite arduous and to expect them to travel to Brentry will, for many, be a journey too far.
Many of these are also carers and the extra time spent travelling not only affects them but their loved ones at home.

The day hospice works at Knowle because the patients are able to see a specialised doctor without an appointment, talk to nurses about the worries and troubles they have in dealing with their medical condition without time limit.

Many find talking to others in a similar circumstance of benefit. Whilst this service might be undertaken by community nursing, not as many patients would receive this support as at present. Many more would need to be referred to their own GPs.

Whilst we are told to accept change, there is a difference between change and withdrawal. We have no doubt that a properly orchestrated appeal to cover the costs of the necessary repair work to the fabric of the building in Knowle would have been supported by the people of South Bristol.

Yet again, another valuable service in South Bristol will have been lost forever. Not withstanding the suggestion that a new facility will ultimately be built in the Hengrove Park area, the closure of the Knowle site may see the withdrawal of a large number of the hospice's existing supporters on this side of the city.

Day Hospice Volunteers.