25 Years On The Frontline Of Hospice Care.
”This Is Where I’m Meant To Be”.
Twenty-five years is a long time to stay anywhere. In healthcare, it is a mark of commitment, trust and belief in the work you do. This year marks 25 years since May Shurmer, a Senior Staff Nurse at ellenor, first began caring for patients with life-limiting illness and supporting families across Kent and Bexley.
We often hear phrases like, ‘What a difference a year makes’.
But what about 25 years? What kind of difference can one person make in that time?
To find out, we sat down with May Shurmer to reflect on her 25 years at ellenor supporting patients with life-limiting illnesses – and their families – and the care, kindness and dedication that have defined her journey.
It was January 2001 when May first walked through ellenor’s doors. The UK was in the grip of Arctic weather. Ice, record-low temperatures and the first significant snowfall in years caused widespread disruption, even freezing sections of the coast solid.
It was against this backdrop that May first walked through the doors of ellenor: a hospice charity that provides palliative and end-of -life care to local people, of all ages, facing life-limiting illness.
Yet it wasn’t the cold that May felt as she crossed ellenor’s threshold.
“It was warmth,” she recalls. “When I came for my interview, I felt it straight away. It was a happy, welcoming place. I remember thinking, ‘This is where I’m meant to be. This is the place I want to nurse.’”
During her 25 years at ellenor, May has worked on the inpatient unit, with the Hospice at Home team, and, more recently, in ellenor’s Wellbeing team. The team provides practical, emotional and therapeutic support not only to the patients under ellenor’s care but to their carers and families – and, when those patients pass away, their bereaved loved ones, too. Bringing together physiotherapy, occupational therapy, complementary therapy and family support, the Wellbeing service helps people with life-limiting conditions live as well as possible for as long as possible.
Today, May works closely with ellenor’s therapists, bringing decades of nursing experience to a wide and varied caseload within the hospice charity’s Wellbeing team. She meets all new referrals and is a steady point of contact across a busy timetable of patient groups: from seated exercise and breath-management to arts, crafts and social sessions that fight isolation and rebuild confidence.
The way she effortlessly juggles her duties across dual disciplines has inspired her colleagues to give May a nickname, which she relates with a chuckle and a grin: ‘The Wellbeing Nurse’.
The conditions May encounters span almost the entire medical alphabet: cancers, heart failure, COPD and other lung diseases, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, MS, motor neurone disease and, very often, extreme frailty. Some patients are in their late teens transitioning from children’s services, but many are older adults. To May, though – both now, and throughout the entirety of her 25 years at ellenor – all are people first.
“We don’t focus on the disability a person has,” May says. “We look at what that person can do. Some patients come to groups every week and really get involved; others I might call once every six months just to check in. And that’s fine. If they’re well and out living their lives, that’s exactly what we want.
“One of the first things I say is, ‘You might not need us much right now – just remember, we’re here when you do.’”
Those aren’t just words, but a message May backs up, every week, with something practical: open-door nurse clinics. These drop-in sessions, which May runs, allow patients and their carers to pop by with questions – medical or otherwise – and leave reassured: with answers, signposts and a plan that’s tailored to their needs.
“It’s simple,” May says. “I give them the timetable and say, ‘Come if you need us.’”
Across 25 years, May has learned that early, honest support changes lives – and that families need care as much as patients do. “We get to know our patients – and their families,” she says. “People arrive with letters full of numbers and abbreviations they don’t understand,” she explains. “Part of my role is working through it with them, in plain language, so they understand what’s happening and how we can help.”
Alongside the privilege of those conversations comes the hardest part of hospice care: loss. But for May, grief is inseparable from compassion.
“It’s hard,” she says softly. “Some families need so much support because the needs are so great – but 99% of the people who come, keep coming. Even when we think we’re not making much difference, they’ll say, ‘I like coming here.” You listen at ellenor. You make a difference.’ That’s why I come to work.”
So, what has changed since that snowy January morning 25 years ago?
Treatments have improved. People are living longer with complex conditions. ellenor’s Wellbeing services have grown and evolved with stronger therapeutic aims behind every activity.
But at its heart, hospice care remains unchanged.
“Compassionate care underpins everything,” May says. “It’s about listening and walking alongside people. We’re much better now at recognising the wellbeing side – that a gardening group or a craft session isn’t ‘just’ social, it’s therapeutic – but the core is still being kind, supporting patients through their journey, and helping them live their life until they die.”
May’s own journey into nursing almost didn’t happen. She left a steady banking job in her early 20s, turning down financial certainty to follow her instincts into nurse training.
She’s never looked back.
“I came home one day and said to my husband, ‘I’ve resigned. I’ve applied for nurse training,’” she laughs. “He said, ‘Pardon?’ But I knew I had to do it before it was too late, and I’ve never regretted it.”
Today, May is proud of her legacy. She’s a mum to two grown-up children, one of whom has now works in hospice care herself. She will soon celebrate 40 years of marriage. And, with ellenor, she marks 25 years supporting people through some of the most difficult moments they will ever face.
Through it all, May has seen ellenor evolve into a deeply trusted hospice charity, rooted in its community and shaped by the people who work within it, just as she has found the role she was meant for.
“Some people are born for different roles in life; I’ve found mine,” May says. “Every day at ellenor is different. Every day is a learning day. And, sometimes, it’s the smallest moments that keep you going.
“Last week a man asked about his mum; I explained the options. As he left, he told reception, ‘She’s a lovely lady! She knows her stuff, doesn’t she?’ Comments like that – knowing someone’s gone away more settled – that’s what makes me keep coming to work.”
Needless to say, that even 25 years on, the feeling May had on day one at ellenor hasn’t dimmed.
“I love caring for patients. I love working with families. I love being able to make a difference. But most of all, I still haven’t lost the feeling of walking into the building here at ellenor and thinking, ‘I love my job.’”
