Reflections On A Challenging Year: How Ellenor Made An Impact
Find out about the impact ellenor is having through its work in children’s and adult’s palliative care and download our financial report and accounts here.
ellenor is your local hospice, and we are a palliative care provider for adults and children in Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley, and children across the London Borough of Bexley. We have an Adult Inpatient Ward at Northfleet, and in addition comprehensive Hospice @ Home services in our community for adults and children and a range of out-patient, wellbeing and community services all supported and delivered through a multi-disciplinary team.
The population of the core area (Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley), where both adult and children’s services are provided is approximately 260,000 people, with over 45,000 adults above the age of 65. The children’s service area also extends to Bexley servicing a population of over 250,000.
“In 2019 we were faced with the Covid-19 pandemic which created great challenges each day. With the support of our dedicated team of staff and the incredible generosity of our local community, we were able to continue to deliver our diverse range of services to support our local community for babies, children and adults. In such a challenging year what remained certain was the collective effort from staff and volunteers, along with the continued generosity of our local supporters.
In this report we highlight how at very short notice, our services developed new processes, care delivery systems and ways of working with our primary focus on continuing to support our patients and their families but also to minimise the health and safety risk for them and for our staff, and volunteers.
For the year ended March 2021 it cost us £6.8m to care for and support patients and their families facing life limiting illness. £4.9m of funds was raised through the generosity of local supporters, from donations, legacies, trading activities and statutory funding.
Despite the restrictions where it was very difficult to effectively plan from one week to the next, we prioritised resources and worked to ensure that our care services were delivered to minimise the impact to our patients and their families. We went beyond this, by supporting and helping our colleagues from the NHS and other health and care setting providing our own expertise to the wider community as necessary as well as opening crisis inpatient beds to support the transition of 107 patients, from hospitals to care homes or back to their own homes. This resulted in 1,534 extra days of care we delivered.
With your support we have been able to continue our vital work and help local families at their time of need. Thank you.” Vikki Harding – Chief Executive, ellenor