The South Bucks Community Hospice's new head of care is on a mission to make more GPs aware of the range of services the charity offers.
Sharon Fairclough’s appointment as Head of Clinical Services and Education coincided with the hospice moving in April 2017 to Butterfly House, a new £4.8m purpose-built building in Totteridge, High Wycombe.
Sharon has been connected with the hospice since 2004 and has been Head of Counselling since 2015. She says: “I met a family recently who said 'we didn’t know you were here, our GP didn’t know you were here and we feel we have struck gold.'”
She explained: “The big thing for me is to extend our services to many more people in the community, to reach more patients and make more health care professionals aware of how we can support patients.
“We are a non-bedded hospice and are able to tailor our patients’ needs individually, so every person is treated as being unique.”
Sharon’s Counselling and Psychotherapy training began in 1993. She is an accredited member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy.
Her first job was as a family support volunteer for Home Start UK in Oxfordshire, where she visited families to help create bonds between parents and young children.
Sharon went on to support families struggling with post-natal depression, isolation, physical health problems, bereavement and many other issues.
For nine years, Sharon was director of Arena Counselling Service who provided counselling support to a large Occupational Health department within the NHS.
And one of her biggest career landmarks came earlier this year when the hospice’s Brain Tumour Support Group that she set up, won a Multidisciplinary Teamwork Award from the International Journal of Palliative Nursing.
She is determined to keep on supporting patients. “Some people are so anxious about coming here,” she says. “However, once they step through the door, they realise that we are here to help them live their life to the full and there is a sense of relief for patients and family members.
“Our services have improved even more, now we have moved into Butterfly House and all services are under one roof. People often don’t want to come to a hospice. They can feel fearful of what they think it means, but when they come through the door, they are delighted.”
Butterfly House is a non-bedded hospice providing palliative day-services for patients living with a life limiting or life threatening illness. It provides Counselling, Lymphoedema Care, Physiotherapy and Complementary Therapies to patients from the age of 17.
If you would like to find out more about The South Bucks Community Hospice and the services it offers, please go to www.sbh.org.uk or ring 01494 552761
