The Cruellest Cut

The shocking news that daycare at Hayward House is to terminate.

A large number of people in Nottingham will have cause to be grateful to Hayward House Macmillan Specialist Palliative Cancer Care Unit, having had a relative or friend helped by the dedicated staff there.  And none of us know whether or when we could personally be grateful for the work done there.

Hayward House is situated in the campus of the City Hospital, and cares for patients with advanced cancer.  It has been going for years, offering inpatient care and daycare.  My mum died there in 1997, and I have been a volunteer driver for almost 10 years.

Patients find the daycare invaluable.  It's very personal.  Cancer sufferers get to see doctors and nurses to have their medical conditions looked after; spend time in company rather than alone; get a nicely served hot meal plus drinks and snacks; get the chance to do craftwork and other activities; go on an annual boat trip; are able to have a shower or bath and have other physical needs cared for; and, most importantly, are treated with love and respect.  The daycare offered by Hayward House is invaluable as it combines medical, emotional, personal and social care, and all patients and their carers are treated individually, and with human warmth.  Many patients who attend daycare find it is their only opportunity to get out of their houses and do/see something different.  For those who live alone, it may be their only opportunity for a chat.  Daycare also provides much needed respite for carers.

Now there is the shocking news that daycare at Hayward House is to terminate.

Hayward House is funded by a Primary Care Trust, whose Commissioners have made the decision to stop daycare on September 1st.   No-one from the PCT has been to Hayward House to see what goes on there.  Some different kind of service, but not daycare, will be offered after Sept 1st, but nobody yet knows what.  No new daycare referrals are being accepted as from now.  As the daycare service runs down, there will be fewer and fewer patients attending, so the service will lose its happy atmosphere and be transformed into a handful of people hanging on grimly. 

The in-patient facility is not (yet) affected.

Money will not be saved in the long run.  Currently, patients experiencing problems will usually wait until their next daycare session to ask for help, confident that trained medical staff with knowledge of their cases will be available to help.  Without daycare, and experiencing terrifying symptoms or unbearable pain, they will go straight to A&E.  Many more will become inpatients much earlier than they would with the support of daycare.  Others will have to go into nursing homes when daycare would have supported them living in their own homes.

Patients, who should be spared unnecessary worry at this stage in their lives, are very distressed, sad and angry.  Volunteers, staff, carers, and others affected are also upset.  One patient with advanced cancer who spoke to me said that since she heard this news, she has been unable to keep any food down, and she is terrified that she will have to go into a nursing home once daycare ends.  She can’t stop herself from crying.

Daycare at Hayward House is a remarkable service, especially in the way it combines medical care with care for the whole person; enables people with often painful or frightening conditions to chat with each other and find they are not alone; gets people out of the house and into a social situation; helps with personal issues such as bathing, massage, relaxation; treats everybody with care and dignity.  Patients whose conditions deteriorate can move seamlessly into the wards to become inpatients in an environment they are already familiar with.

The staff are very dedicated, and there is a large team of long-term volunteers, helping with tasks such as serving meals, greeting, providing tea and biscuits, driving, etc.  We started volunteering years before there was any mention of a “Big Society”; now that we supposedly should have a “Big Society”, everything worth volunteering for is being cut. 

A patient described Hayward House daycare as “our last sanctuary”.  Having already picked on the truly vulnerable when attacking services for disabled people, refugees and the homeless, there was only one way for the money-men to stoop lower: by kicking the terminally ill.  Hayward House daycare must not be allowed to stop.

Staff are not allowed to campaign on this issue, and patients are too ill.  However, volunteers are angry, and free and able to campaign; although there have been no meetings and no formal campaign exists as yet, some volunteers are starting to write letters to publicise this attack on the dying.  When I know the address of the PCT, I will post it here, in the hope that they will receive bags of letters explaining why Hayward House daycare must be saved.  It can probably be found at http://www.nottinghamcity.nhs.uk/ .  Meanwhile, there are other letters to be written - to the media, etc. 

I beg for everyone’s support to try to keep Hayward House daycare there for people in their bleakest hours.

Contact email: boraxwoman-hayward@yahoo.co.uk