Good quality, clear information can feel like a lifeline when you’re living with a life-limiting illness and we understand that patient information is fundamental to effective, person-centred, quality care. We believe patients should be partners in their care and feel empowered to make informed choices and decisions regarding their treatment.

The first point of contact at St Columba’s Hospice Care is our Access Team who triage and respond to all referrals received, making sure anyone affected by life-limiting illness can get the answers they need, when they need them.

They proactively support people and their care providers during their transition into our care, ensuring they have access to specialist symptom advice and support with their wellbeing needs. Over the course of the year, we responded to 1,164 advice calls ranging from specialist symptom advice to social, spiritual and psychological concerns.

Our Centre for Education and Research is vital to the palliative and end-of-life care we offer today, and to the way we will care in the future. It allows us to share our experience and collaborate with organisations that are at the leading edge of caring for people when they need it most.

We are proud of the support we have given to patients and families this year, but we know we can’t do this alone.

We work with a wide range of health and social care providers and collaborate with a number of organisations locally and nationally to ensure we develop best practice, stay innovative and co-produce our work to deliver what people in our community want and need.

We also want to make sure those voices are heard at the highest level so that local and national policy and funding decisions have the best outcomes for people living with life-limiting illnesses.