“There aren’t many jobs that allow you to really give your time and make patients feel heard and supported.”
Zoe has been qualified as a nurse for over 20 years and has worked at Birmingham Hospice since 2009. As a part of our Community Nursing Team, Zoe delivers specialist palliative care to patients living with a terminal illness across Birmingham and the wider area.
The opportunity to provide more dedicated care to patients is what drove Zoe to join the hospice. She explained: “Over time you realise that in a hospital you just haven’t got time for patients, which made me think about where I should go to be able to give better patient care. That’s what led me to the hospice”.
Community nurses work closely with a whole range of healthcare staff involved in a patient’s care plan. Their specialist training in palliative treatment enables them to provide those with a life-limiting illness with the structure they need to feel assured and supported.
“Sometimes patients will feel quite daunted about coming home, particularly when they are coming home to die,” Zoe said. “You can really make a difference by making sure they know that they’ve got somewhere to turn if they’re worried, if they need to talk something through, or if something changes.”
The support and expertise of a Palliative Care Nurse is also a great comfort for patients’ families. Zoe explained: “Sometimes patients might be really well settled and dying peacefully, but that’s often when relatives need a bit more support, so we’re there for them as well.”
Alongside the practical tasks involved in administering care, the greatest impact of Zoe’s work is frequently borne out in the space she gives for discussion and reassurance. “Sometimes you haven’t physically changed anything – I might not have prescribed a drug or suggested anything different – but we receive feedback where the patient will say, ‘that really helped’ – just having that time where somebody listened and talked,” she explained.
Administering palliative care in the community has a much broader scope than many people assume, and Zoe said that sometimes patients can be hesitant to accept hospice care because of misconceptions about end of life services.
“They feel that the hospice is just about death and dying,” she said. “Sometimes it can take a little while to show them that we aren’t just focused on the end – we are there to make them feel as well as they can right now, so that they can enjoy life as much as possible.”
Caring for those with a life-limiting illness is necessarily a difficult experience. Despite this, Zoe explained that the positive contribution she can make to the lives of those she supports means that her job is also incredibly rewarding.
She added: “It’s really important to know if a patient wants to die at home, so knowing you’ve managed to help them achieve that in the best possible way, and the most comfortable way, and been there to support everyone – you think, I’ve done my job, and it makes it all worthwhile.”
