Hospice partners with armed forces charity to care for veterans

Help for Heroes has joined forces with Plymouth’s St Luke’s Hospice to encourage and train fellow veterans to join the Turnchapel charity’s End of Life Military Compassion project as a volunteer.

St Luke’s is piloting a scheme to enhance its end-of-life care for patients who have given service to their country in the armed forces. The project is designed to ensure the community is a kinder place for both current military personnel and veterans whose time is running short, and for their families, too. 

With grant funding from the Armed Forces Covenant, the initiative evolved from St Luke’s collaboration with Plymouth City Council and other local organisations to establish Plymouth as England’s first Compassionate City for people at end of life and those who care for them.   

And Help for Heroes’ Veterans Clinical Advisor, Janine Whitley – who covers the south-west – is now working with the end-of-life project, to teach volunteers how to work with veterans.

The project recognises patients from military backgrounds tend to feel better understood, and more at ease, when the care and support they receive acknowledges the service they have given their country and utilises the language and routines with which they are familiar. 

Understanding, too, that receiving a terminal diagnosis can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness, St Luke’s is using the grant to recruit volunteers from military backgrounds, providing them with bespoke training so that they are equipped to give befriending support to terminally ill current and former servicemen and women and their families.

Many of St Luke’s and Help for Heroes own staff come from military families or have themselves served in the armed forces. Indeed, Exeter-based nursing specialist Whitley served in the Royal Navy for 25 years, which included four tours of Afghanistan.

As well as harnessing their knowledge and experience to develop the pilot project, St Luke’s has drawn on the expertise of charities dedicated to supporting current and former forces personnel, hence Whitley’s new role advising volunteers on how a veteran’s service may be impacting them and their families now, in the past, and into the future. 

She said: “It is great to be able to work with the St Luke’s team to help veterans with life-limiting illnesses. Veteran volunteers who come forward to become end-of-life compassionate friends for fellow veterans can make a huge difference to them, their families, and their quality of life and we hope we can encourage more and more to join the project, where full training is provided.”

George Lillie, Director of Clinical Services and Deputy Chief Executive of St Luke’s, added: “We are delighted to be working with Janine in developing and promoting our pilot project to encourage and train veteran volunteers to be able support fellow veterans who are sadly at the end of their life. 

“The service we provide is about so much more than hands-on medical care – it is about getting to know our patients so that we can focus on what matters most to them, helping them make the most of their time with loved ones.

“It is great pleasure to have the support of Help for Heroes, with their wealth of knowledge and expertise in working with Veterans to help us increase our reach and support for veterans in our local community who are approaching the end of their lives. I look forward to seeing this project flourish.”

Help for Heroes believes those who serve our country deserve support when they’re wounded. Every day, men and women have to leave their career in the Armed Forces as a result of physical or psychological wounds. The Charity helps them, and their families, to recover and get on with their lives. It has already supported more than 26,500 people and won’t stop until every wounded veteran gets the support they deserve.

n For further information on Help for Heroes, or to get support, visit helpforheroes.org.uk.

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