"In October 2019 my mum was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at a very late stage and she very quickly experienced serious problems with pain management.

It was a friend whose mum had been through a similar experience who suggested we contact St Luke’s and as soon as we did, we knew we had made the right decision.

We’d had one particularly bad time when we had actually had to call an ambulance because mum was in so much pain but when the St Luke’s Community Team got involved, all that changed.

They were just wonderful, the most amazing people and they were complete specialists in the type of care and pain relief mum needed.

It’s a time when power is completely taken away from you and you are in somebody else’s hands so it was really important to mum and dad that they were with people who knew what they were doing - it gave my dad the confidence that mum had the very best care she could have.

Most importantly, St Luke’s had time for mum and they made her life as bearable as it possibly could be in the six weeks between her diagnosis and her death.

The whole team were super practical and for us as a family, the most vital thing was that they were not all doom and gloom - they were really positive, which was very important, and they knew exactly what they were doing.

In addition to the pain control, they were able to offer other support as well and even though mum didn’t get the chance to properly experience everything St Luke’s does, my dad did make use of the St Luke’s bereavement counselling for a short period and found it very helpful.

They’d been married almost 40 years and had been together since mum was just 17 and the counselling helped dad to understand that it is okay to speak to somebody about that loss and reaffirm that it is very hard.

The people of Sheffield know how important St Luke’s is for the whole city - it’s care for people who don’t have very long left and it is the best care you could possibly receive.

A lot of people at some point in their life will need to rely on St Luke’s and that’s why offering support is so important, making sure other can people can access the sort of care my mum and dad received.

The difference St Luke’s makes to lives is incomparable - there’s nobody else can give the support they can."