A number of Pendleside Hospice employees ‘job swapped’ during Hospice Care Week earlier this month to showcase the wide variety of roles which come together to keep the hospice operational.
The theme for Hospice Care Week 2019 was ‘This Is What It Takes’ – designed to look beyond the clinical team of nurses and doctors, who are often the first and main point of contact for people using hospice services.
Pendleside’s chief executive Helen McVey said: “It’s sometimes easy to forget there are lots of other roles that are vital to ensuring the doctors and nurses can provide the exemplary care they do.
“We wanted Pendleside employees to experience a completely different role at the hospice to see how we all fit together to deliver the service we do, while reinforcing the ‘this is what it takes’ message.”
One of the hospice’s fundraising trustees, Fran Chapman, spent a morning with the catering team, assisting catering manager Mark Scott with his weekly chores and helping the team prepare meals for patients and staff.
Mark then spent some time on Pendleside’s inpatients unit, helping the team care for the patients while also learning more about what it takes to enhance the quality of life for those with life-limiting illnesses.
Clinical services manager Anne Huntley swapped her usual role to spend an afternoon lending a hand at Pendleside’s furniture store on Trafalgar Street in Burnley, while day services, family support and outpatient manager Julia O'Neill tried her hand at a spot of gardening and leaf blowing.
Income generation manager Lisa Pearson joined the domestics team, taking the opportunity to understand the hard work put in by the domestics team 365 days a year, as well as experiencing it for herself.
She said: “The girls worked me hard, everywhere was aching afterwards! Our domestics team keeps our building spotlessly clean and this is such an important role as our patients are very susceptible to infections.
“Job swapping has been incredible for everyone involved and really showcased the various elements which make up the wider Pendleside team. Hospice care is about so much more than the clinical side – we wouldn’t still be operating 30 years later without such a wide variety of people working together.”