Emergency meeting to stop 'devastating loss' of in-patient ward at Woolton's Marie Curie Hospice

Liverpool councillors are meeting staff from Woolton’s Marie Curie Hospice tonight as fears grow its in-patient ward is set to close for good.

The Marie Curie 26-bed unit where people with terminal illnesses are supported and cared for in their final weeks and days has been closed ‘temporarily’ since July last year.

But now concerns are growing it will not re-open after staff were informed ‘it has no future’, it is claimed.

Independent councillor for Garston Lucy Williams says the news leaves families, patients and staff facing an uncertain future – and raises serious concerns about the impact on end-of-life care in the area.

“For it to close would be shameful, and a devastating loss to our community,” she says.

Lucy Williams is one of four councillors speaking urgently with staff this evening. Much Woolton & Hunts Cross Lib Dem Cllr Josie Mullen, and leader and deputy leaders of Liverpool Community Independents Group Cllrs Alan Gibbons and Sam Gorst will be joining her.

She says it will be followed by a plan of action to save the in-patient unit.

Cllr Williams says: “The in-patient ward has been closed since last summer and the staff are in limbo while Marie Curie decides whether or not they are going to reopen it.

“We are meeting with staff who have approached us to help them to listen to their concerns and come up with some actions together and get public support.

“We want to put pressure on Marie Curie to reopen the unit and offer staff some clarity about whether they are going to have a job at the end of March and provide this facility for the community.

“The staff have been really patient but over the last couple of weeks they have become increasingly concerned that the focus is going to be on community care rather than in-patient care.”

Worried staff voiced concerns at the end of last year that the ‘temporary closure’ of the ward could become a permanent one, saying that it made the situation for both them and the patients they care for a difficult one.

One nurse at the hospice which covers the whole of South Liverpool was reported as saying: “When people are in a hospice we can look after them the whole time and make them comfortable. We can’t do that with the ward closed.

“To have a terminal diagnosis and then be told there is no hospice for you is terrible. I don’t know what people will do if it closes permanently.”

“If you need end-of-life care and your preferred place of care is a hospice,” continues Cllr Williams, “you will go on a waiting list for Woodlands Hospice in Fazakerley or Willowbrook in Prescot, but they have their own catchment areas that they serve, and if you don’t get a bed in one of those your choice then is either hospital – which we are told to avoid – or you have no choice but to die at home.

“That might be what some people want, but for a lot of people it’s not.”

Cllr Williams, who was herself a specialist nurse in palliative and end-of-life care, says the hospice is currently operating a virtual ward from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, but that this is no good if you are a patient that needs help in the middle of the night.

“We have other community services that provide that care, but it’s not the same as an in-patient unit.

“We have been inundated with support, but we need to listen to the staff first to decide what the next steps are. People love Marie Curie Hospice Liverpool, they have memories in that place, it’s a much-loved fixture in South Liverpool and to lose it would be shameful and damaging.”

A spokesperson for Marie Curie said: “We can reconfirm that no decision has yet been made about the long-term future of the inpatient unit at the Marie Curie Hospice, Liverpool.

“We know that this is an incredibly unsettling time and want to thank staff for their ongoing resilience and flexibility at this time. We will share more information when we can.”