Being able to offer patients and their families a safe and confidential space to navigate unfamiliar circumstances, thoughts and emotions is very important.
Our Patient and Family Support Team provides additional emotional, spiritual and counselling support to those impacted by life-limiting illness. They can also help with providing information relating to illness and bereavement.
Our Counselling and Bereavement services offer a blended model of virtual and face-to-face support to maximise accessibility and efficiency of service, the team has received 252 adult referrals, delivered 1,239 individual sessions and had 214 people attend group sessions.
While it can be challenging, supporting families with children and young people allows even the youngest family members to explore big emotions and have a voice in what is a very difficult situation. Our Children and Families Team received 175 referrals (an increase of 15%) and delivered 1,035 sessions. In addition, the team continues to influence locally and nationally through networking, schools’ projects, collaborations with other hospices and professional education. Through this work, St Columba’s was recognised as the first hospice in Scotland to be awarded the Bereavement Charter Mark.
The Wellbeing Service launched in April 2022 and has evolved to expand accessibility though a dedicated community outreach programme. Regular collaborative projects in the community, enables those who would otherwise be unable to access the service due to geography or other limitations, to be introduced to Hospice care. Over the past 12 months 456 people have joined our wellbeing sessions, an increase of 74% and 293 people benefited from complementary therapy sessions, an increase of 31%.
Our Arts Team continues to provide individual and group sessions for patients and families as well as live music sessions, cultural events and arts-based staff support. They also continue to influence nationally and internationally through an annual Arts Symposium, national community of practice, journal articles, book chapters and conference presentations.
Our Compassionate Neighbours volunteers offer their time, kindness and company to local people who may be socially isolated, lonely or living with a life-limiting condition. We have introduced a specific model of support through gardening which has been gratefully received. Over the last 12 months, our team has supported 2,739 one-to-one interactions with people in our community, an increase of 64% since last year.
Registered Charity No. SC003634
