St Benedict's Hospice

St Benedict’s Hospice has provided specialist palliative care to the people of Sunderland and surrounding districts (Seaham, Murton and South Hetton) since 1984. Care is provided by the NHS as part of South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust and is also supported by St. Benedict’s Hospice charity. 

Patients may be referred to any of our Specialist Palliative Care services with a malignant disease or with progressive illness where the prognosis is limited and the focus of care is on the quality of life. Care can be delivered within any environment including hospice, the patient’s own home including care home or hospital and is dependent on need and patient / carer choice.

Services within St Benedict’s Hospice and Centre for Specialist Palliative Care include:

• In-patient unit (14 beds)
• Day services including a range of therapies
• 24 hour advice line 
• Specialist palliative care nursing service – hospital, community and care homes 
• Lymphoedema service
• Out-patient clinics (Consultant and nurse practitioner)
• Medical community visits (Consultant)
• Out of Hours palliative care nursing service 
• Education department

Our team is made up of a range of health and social care professionals working together to provide services to meet your individual needs. This includes Doctors, Nurses, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Chaplain, Pharmacist, Psychologist, Complementary Therapist, Art Psychotherapist, Social Worker, Bereavement and Family Counsellors.  All of the above are supported by the administration and ancillary teams, and wide team of volunteers.

The World Health Organisation defines palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual. Palliative care:

• provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms;
• affirms life and regards dying as a normal process;
• intends neither to hasten or postpone death;
• integrates the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care;
• offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death;
• offers a support system to help the family cope during the patients illness and in their own bereavement;
• uses a team approach to address the needs of patients and their families, including bereavement counselling, if indicated;
• will enhance quality of life, and may also positively influence the course of illness;
• is applicable early in the course of illness, in conjunction with other therapies that are intended to prolong life, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy, and includes those investigations needed to better understand and manage distressing clinical complications.

For further information please call us on 0191 5128400
Further information on all our services is available on our website www.stbenedicts.co.uk

St Benedict’s Hospice and Centre for Specialist Palliative Care
St Benedict’s Way
Ryhope
Sunderland
SR2 0NY