St Mary’s Hospice is delighted to announce it has been awarded £10,000 from the Albert Hunt Trust to help meet the increased need for end of life care and support for patients, families and carers locally.
Over the last twelve months the hospice has evolved its way of working to be responsive and flexible, delivering vital end of life care services for patients and families at the hospice and across its community. This has led to increased pressure on generating income to sustain the charity:
St Mary’s Hospice Trusts and Grants Officer, Ali Alger said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted greatly on both the need for our services, and our ability to deliver them. We have seen a surge in requests for our Hospice At Home service as families choose to keep their loved ones out of hospital. Our Living Well services have been adapted to be delivered remotely during the pandemic with staff conducting initial assessments in full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to ensure we can continue to meet the very individual needs of our patients. Six out of 8 beds on our In Patient Unit (IPU) are operational and fully utilised, with staff working securely and ensuring flexibility across our services.”
“The demand for our vital Family and Bereavement Support Service continues to grow, and we have recently recruited six new bereavement volunteers who began training earlier this month, and have increased staff time into the service.”
The Albert Hunt Trust grant will be allocated to core clinical costs to help with the impact of Covid: “This grant makes a big difference to supporting St Mary’s Hospice’s core running costs and enabling us to continue to deliver free services, accessible to all.”
“We gratefully received £7k funding from the Albert Hunt Trust in May 2020 to support the salary costs of two new Speciality Doctors working in our IPU.” This directly contributes to St Mary’s continuing to give expert care and compassion so those affected by advancing illness have comfort, choice and dignity.
If you would like to find out more about any of St Mary’s services and how to make a referral please click the button below or call us on 01229 580 305.