Wirral Hospice St John’s is working hard to ensure our patients and families continue to get the care and support they need throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Please visit our Coronavirus Advice page for what measures we have in place to maximise safety.

Supporting our NHS partners
We’re also doing our bit to support local NHS partners by freeing up some of their time and resources.

Due to the unprecendented spread of Covid 19, in a very short timeframe we have repurposed our Wellbeing Centre into a temporary six-bedded ward. This is to provide care for patients with Covid 19 who are particularly frail or require our end-of-life palliative care.

How will the Sunflower Unit work?
Our new Sunflower Unit is entirely separate from our main inpatient unit at the hospice, which is continuing to care for non-Covid patients who have specialist palliative care needs.

Staff from our Wellbeing Centre, Hospice at Home, and our Inpatient Unit teams are being re-deployed to support the Sunflower Unit. The patients on this unit will require more support than can be provided in a home environment.

How long will it be open for?
Our Sunflower Unit will be open for as long as that extra support to the NHS is required.

How can a patient be admitted to the Sunflower Unit?
GPs will authorise referrals to our Sunflower Unit, these will be reviewed daily by our medical professionals.

Visitors
We are very sorry but no visitors will be able to come to see a patient being cared for in our Sunflower Unit. Please be assured that our care team will work very closely with loved ones to keep in contact by phone and video calls.

How will Wirral Hospice’s Sunflower Unit be funded?
We will receive some Wirral Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) funding but this will not cover our hospice’s full costs, so donations from our local community will be very important.

How can I help Wirral Hospice’s Urgent Appeal?
Please visit Wirral Hospice’s Urgent Appeal page if you would like to support our charity during these extremely challenging times, thank you.