NURSE Linda Lulham will be one of the Prospect Hospice staff working at Savernake Hospital when the new outpatient facility opens next year.

She has been a nurse for 20 years and became Prospect’s community clinical nurse specialist for Marlborough, Pewsey and the surrounding villages six months ago.

Before this, Mrs Lulham was the community services manager at Cotswold Care Hospice in Gloucestershire.

Her role involves visiting patients’ homes and helping with symptom control, offering advice and support to patients, families and carers and liaising with other agencies.

She said: “I joined Prospect because it’s a great hospice. I got to know it well when I was working in Gloucestershire and I had a lot of respect for Prospect.

“My role is to allow patients to be cared for wherever they want to be cared for.”

When the outpatient facility is opened at Savernake in the spring of 2015, Mrs Lulham will split her time between the hospital and visits to patients’ homes.

She said: “At the moment patients and carers have to travel to Wroughton for outpatient services and that can be quite a way from the furthest-flung villages that we cover, so having the facility at Savernake will make a huge difference.

“A lot of patients are no longer able to drive, or their relatives have to work and there is a financial burden of having to travel that far.

“I will be able to base myself in the area that I cover for a much longer period of time rather than having to travel up and down from the base in Wroughton.

“Also, we are hoping to provide education and training as we do in Wroughton and I’ll be able to get involved with that.”

The hospice has joined forces with the Gazette to raise the £75,000 it needs by March 31 to open the new facility.

Mrs Lulham said: “The patients that I visit are very excited about it because they are passionate about the area that they live in and I think they feel they deserve to have a facility near to where they live.

“Among the GPs and district nurses as well there is a buzz of excitement because they think this is something that will be really good for the area.”