Carers ‘like Florence Nightingale’

One of the first patients to benefit from the Lothian Fast Track Palliative Care Discharge Service was Samuel Savage, 80, who died at home in Corstorphine after spending weeks in the Western General, and then the Marie Curie Hospice.

His daughter, Alison Savage, said the whole family wanted him to come home and were becoming frustrated: “We were becoming more and more stressed. We had a meeting and they said ‘We’ve got a new service on the go, it’s called fast track’ and I said ‘When can he come out?’ and they said ‘Tomorrow’.”

Ms Savage described the specialist carers as being “like Florence Nightingale”, and said they had done everything they could to support her father: “We couldn’t have asked for more. It meant everything to be able to come home.”