“When you spend time with Tina, you quickly understand why families remember her. She puts people at ease immediately and makes families feel like they’re not going through difficult moments on their own. Tina brings warmth and reassurance into people’s homes every day and I can completely see why she has meant so much to so many families over the last 10 years. We’re very lucky to have her as part of ellenor.” Jon Quinn, ellenor CEO.
For the past 10 years, Tina Houckham, has supported hundreds of local families through some of the most difficult moments of their lives as part of ellenor’s Hospice at Home team.
When Tina Houckham walks into somebody’s home, families often say the same thing.
“They’ll either call us angels or the comfort blanket,” she says. “So many of them say: ‘It’s like someone’s wrapped a blanket round us.’”
Tina is a Healthcare Assistant with ellenor’s Hospice at Home team. She has spent the last 10 years supporting adults and families across Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley. Many are living with life-limiting illnesses including neurological conditions, advanced respiratory disease, heart failure and cancer and her support often begins from diagnosis and can continue for months or even years, not just at the end of life.
But ask her what families need most and the answer comes instantly.
“Support and reassurance.”
She says those two words repeatedly throughout the conversation.
Because when families are exhausted, frightened and overwhelmed, Tina believes the most important thing ellenor can offer is human presence.
“It’s not even what we do sometimes,” she says. “It’s just our being there.”
That can mean sitting in somebody’s living room for hours while a family processes what is happening around them.
“If I need to be there for three hours and drink three cups of tea, I’ll walk out of there knowing I’ve made a difference,” she says. “Because families then understand that I do have the time to talk, listen and just be there with them.”
Sometimes it means helping families hold onto important moments.
Tina remembers one couple in their 80s whose granddaughter was getting married.
“I went there on the Friday and the lady was deteriorating,” she says. “By the next day, Nan wasn’t going to be able to go to the wedding. But Grandad then couldn’t go either because nobody could leave her on her own.”
Tina spoke to her manager and offered to sit with her on the Saturday so he could still attend.
“So, I got there at 12 and he’d left me this little salad bowl, a cream doughnut and a miniature bottle of wine all laid out for me,” she laughs. “Everything neatly laid out and covered up.”
While the rest of the family went to the wedding, Tina stayed with his wife at home.
“Then afterwards the granddaughter came back in her wedding dress to give Nan her bouquet.”
Ten years ago, Tina admits she had no real understanding of what hospice care involved when she first joined ellenor.
“Absolutely not,” she laughs. “No, I just didn’t really know what it involved.”
Then something changed very quickly.
“From my very first day, I thought: this is my vocation.”
Before joining ellenor, Tina worked in domiciliary care before moving into enablement services, helping people regain independence after illness and surgery. It was supporting her father-in-law through severe COPD and repeated hospital admissions that changed her understanding of hospice care.
“He just kept yo-yoing in and out of hospital,” she says. “That’s where I probably got most of my understanding of ellenor.”
Over the years she has seen Hospice at Home change significantly.
“When I first started, we did a lot more respite visits so carers could go out, do shopping, have a coffee, just breathe for a little while knowing someone was there with their loved one,” she says. “Now it’s changed massively. Especially since Covid. It’s much more crisis support and reassurance.”
Again, she comes back to families.
“Families will all say to you: ‘I’m not a nurse; I’m not a doctor.’ They feel overwhelmed,” she says. “So for us to support someone, reassure them and just take some of that pressure away… that’s huge.”
Without that support, she says some families reach breaking point.
“Without our support and reassurance, some families would end up taking their loved one back into hospital because they’re exhausted. Some are just ready to run out of the door.”
One family that has stayed with her over the years was a young mum with two children.
“The children were so involved,” Tina remembers. “They’d answer the door to us. Their grandparents involved them in everything while their mum was dying at home.”
Then she adds:
“You can’t ask for anything better than that really, because they wanted us there.”
Despite the sadness that often surrounds hospice care, Tina says there is still laughter too.
“Sadness doesn’t have to mean miserable,” she says. “Not everything about our role has to be sad.”
Within the Hospice at Home team, Tina is known as “the joker.”
“I’m probably the one who puts a smile and a chuckle on everybody’s face,” she laughs.
But she becomes serious when talking about the people she works alongside.
“I honestly couldn’t do my role without my team,” she says. “We’re all individuals and we’re all different, but we’re equal. I feel completely supported by them.”
That compassion and instinct is something ellenor CEO Jon Quinn saw first-hand when he shadowed Tina on visits.
“I was so worried beforehand,” Tina admits. “But my manager just said to me: ‘Be who you are.’ And I thought, well, I can’t do it any other way.”
After shadowing Tina on visits, Jon spoke about the warmth and reassurance she brings into people’s homes.
“You could see the difference she made the moment she walked through the door,” Jon said. “Families felt supported because Tina made them feel less alone.”
Tina explains it in her own way.
“If you spoke to half a dozen families, they’d all know a different Tina,” she says. “With some families you can be upbeat and jovial. With others, you’re calmer and quieter.”
“You just become what that family needs.”
Ten years after joining ellenor, Tina still talks about her work with the same warmth she had on day one.
When asked whether she has ever thought about leaving, she answers immediately.
“Never,” she says. “Absolutely not.”
Then she smiles.
“I love it. I love my job. For as long as they’ll keep me here.”